Graduate Certificate in Higher Education Curriculum, Teaching and Learning

• Have you completed the Effective Teaching (2 or 3 day workshop) and are you looking for the next step in developing your teaching?
• Do you want to learn more about engaging your students?
• Are you involved in curriculum redesign projects and want to take a research-based approach?
• Are you interested in strengthening your Teaching case for Promotion, or applying for a teaching award, citation or research grant?
• Do you want to become skilled in designing, carrying out and publishing teaching-learning research?

… The La Trobe’s Graduate Certificate in Higher Education Curriculum, Teaching and Learning is for you.

The GCHE course provides participants with the scholarly basis to develop and extend their teaching, learning, and curriculum knowledge, skills and decision-making capacities. Informed by the research into higher education teaching and learning, the course situates the practices of teaching, learning and curriculum development within debates about the changing nature of higher education. In particular, it encourages participants to consider what might be done to improve student engagement and learning.

The GCHE has been specifically designed so that participants can apply their learning and design solutions to relevant practical issues, challenges and puzzles in their own work/professional contexts. Participants have the option to focus their learning on aspects of higher education curriculum, teaching and learning of interest to them. To this end, the assessment tasks in the course are also closely aligned with La Trobe’s own Promotions Evidence Matrix.

On completion of the GCHE, you will have had the opportunity to:

1. Describe the main drivers which have contributed to the changing nature of teaching, learning and curriculum in higher education
2. Apply key La Trobe teaching, learning and curriculum policies to your teaching/professional context
3. Develop and defend a scholarly view of the purpose of higher education curriculum, teaching and learning drawing on Boyer’s view of scholarship
4. Explain how a student-focused view of teaching, learning, assessment, and curriculum can be implemented in your discipline and/or professional context
5. Identify relevant aspects of the field of higher education teaching and learning of interest to your ongoing professional teaching development
6. Re-develop a subject or course drawing on a range of curriculum models including constructive alignment
7. Develop knowledge and skills related to reflective teaching practice in higher education
8. Develop a well-designed plan for carrying out higher education research/development project into an aspect of your teaching and curriculum practice
9. Contribute to, and learn from, the experiences of other participants in the course.

The GCHE is a 60 credit point course, requiring the completion of four 15 credit point subjects. You are required to complete the core subject. All subjects below are 15 credit points.

You may wish to choose elective subjects from the Faculty of Education (FoEd) postgraduate course list. These are taught specifically by staff in the Faculty of Education and will need to be approved by the Course Coordinator. The CTLC teaching team also has a list of recommended FoEd subjects that best enable a participant to achieve the course learning outcomes.　

The Graduate Certificate in Higher Education Curriculum, Teaching and Learning is a joint initiative of the University’s Curriculum, Teaching and Learning Centre (CTLC) and the Faculty of Education. It is taught by CTLC academic staff while the Graduate Certificate is awarded by the Faculty of Education.

The course may be taken full-time over one year or part-time over two years.

• Bachelor's degree or equivalent
• Completion of the Effective Teaching at La Trobe workshop, or equivalent (pre-requisite)
• Support from your Head of School, Associate Dean (Academic) or an equivalent supervisor
• Permission of Course Coordinator