Biggest winners on the block

A radical experiment in small class teaching in four-week blocks has delivered higher grades for students across the board.

Victoria University students, from left, Natasha Milner, Sefo Sefokuli and Sophie Groth say they’ve benefited from block teaching. Picture: Aaron Francis

After a full year of operation Victoria University’s radical experiment in small class teaching in four-week blocks has delivered higher grades for students across the board, particularly for the disadvantaged ones who often struggle with higher education.

Data from the university shows that all socio-economic groups of students who learned in block mode this year had higher pass rates, with the highest percentage point gain going to students in the lowest socio-economic grouping.

The results are a heartening for Victoria University, which took a gamble in introducing block mode teaching in small classes for all first-year students this year in an effort to improve student grades, cut the dropout rate and turn around the university’s budget problems after enduring three consecutive years of deficits.

Disadvantaged students improve most | 2018 pass rates for first year students in block teaching by socio-economic status

The university appears to have succeeded on all fronts with higher pass rates, more students gaining credits and distinctions, more students completing first year and a budget turnaround that is expected to produce a surplus this year.

Under the block teaching system, first-year students took their full course load of eight units one at a time — studying each unit intensively for four week before taking a week’s break and moving on to the next.

The university also changed its teaching style, doing away with conventional lectures and tutorials. Instead students had three classes a week, each of three hours duration and with student numbers limited to about 30 so they could learn interactively with their instructor and with each other.

Victoria University first-year college dean Andrew Smallridge said the sense of belonging among students created by the small interactive classes helped get the better results. “We created small communities within each of the classrooms and the students felt comfortable,” he said.

Next year the university will introduce block teaching to second year, and then to third-year students in 2020. By 2021 it is hoped that all teaching in the university, including postgraduate courses, will be in block mode.

Three students said they had benefited from block teaching.

Natasha Milner, who is studying science with the goal of being a teacher, said its predictable timetable allowed her to manage her three part-time jobs and the small classes helped her. “You have a one-on-one relationship with the lecturer,” she said.

Sefo Sefokuli, who is doing a fitness degree, said he was not a natural student but the block mode helped his grades. “Having the same classmates for that one month really helped,” he said.

Sophie Groth, who is doing a teaching degree, has returned to study after working for more than a decade as a nurse in her native Germany. “The big advantage about the block model is that you only focus on one subject at a time, you don’t get distracted by other topics,” she said.

However, the university is still at loggerheads with the National Tertiary Education Union over a new enterprise bargaining agreement that would enable the university to save teaching costs by requiring teachers to be more flexible and work longer hours. In a Victoria University staff vote in September, 77 per cent voted against the new agreement.

Vice-chancellor Peter Dawkins said that, even though extending block mode next year without the new agreement would be challenging, “we are confident that it can still be achieved”.