Flexible learning in a partnership context

Universities have been slow to adapt to technological change. As the Teaching and Learning Committee of the University of Western Australia observe in Alternative Modes of Teaching and Learning (1996, 2): The new world that is emerging values flexibility over rigidity, and process over content. Yet with our complex system of faculties and departments, courses and units, curricula and assessment, we offer students little control over their own learning. Our current model is predominantly didactic rather than negotiated, and we prefer to control learning resources, rather than offer them.