The Australian Learning and Teaching (ALTC) Grants Scheme 

The ALTC Grants Scheme consists of three programs: Leadership for Excellence in Learning and Teaching; Priority Projects; and Competitive Grants.  

The Leadership Program supports systematic, structured and sustainable models of academic leadership in higher education. The Priority Projects Program addresses the Institute's priorities, including benchmarking, assessment, standards and related aspects of good practice in learning and teaching. The Competitive Grants Program focusses on research related to issues of emerging and continuing importance; strategic approaches to learning and teaching that address the increasing diversity of the student body; the development of ways in which excellence in teaching can be rewarded (excluding awards schemes); and innovation in learning and teaching.

Grants in which the University of Adelaide is the lead intsitution 

Research Skills Development Framework
In 2007 Dr John Willison, who lectures in the Graduate Certificate in Education (Higher Education) in the Centre for Learning and Professional Development (CLPD), received a Competitive Grants Program grant of $215,000 to continue the development of the Research Skills Development Framework, working in conjuntion with Monash and Macquarie Universities and the University of South Australia. The project which is designed to further develop and refine a conceptual tool that can sysematise the diagnosis of entry-level students’ research skills and aid in the planning of learning activities to develop those skills. The project is expected to be completed in 2009. A copy of the complete application has been supplied as an exemplar.

Using TMS to identify and build leadership for quality learning in clinical health care teams
A team of researchers from the three South Australian universities and led by Associate Professor Maree O’Keefe from the Faculty of Health Sciences (School of Reproductive Health and Paediatrics), won an important Carrick Institute grant worth $216,916 to conduct research on leadership in health services clinical teams as part of the Leadership for Excellence in Learning and Teaching Program sponsored by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council.

In South Australia over 12,000 health student clinical placements are organised annually with students placed for up to 36 weeks of the year in order to benefit from workplace learning. The clinical teams with which students are placed are groups of health professionals working together to provide quality health care to the community. These health professionals and the clinical teams in which they work represent a critical interface between health services and universities and strong partnerships are needed for good student learning outcomes.

The purpose of the project is to investigate whether a Team Management Systems (TMS) approach could assist clinical teams to identify and foster educational leadership capacity among the members of the teams and assist Universities to better prepare students for these workplace learning experiences. Clinical team roles, responsibilities and functioning with regard to facilitating experiential learning will be reviewed  by members of participating clinical teams, and if the teams see a need to improve their interactions with students or want to develop members’ leadership skills with the goal of enhancing learning, they will be supported by the universities’ research team.  A copy of the complete application has been supplied as an exemplar.