Welcome to this first post of our new learning and teaching blog. The MEA and members of the wider learning and teaching portfolio have set this blog up as a place for dialogue across the community of Monash educators and educational stakeholders.

We imagine that this dialogue might include discussion of examples of teaching and learning, educational theory or research evidence. At times, it might also touch on contentious topics. Our plan is for the scope to be quite open, but with an invitation for authors to connect their post to their personal learning and teaching context or perspective. Posts might present arguments, questions or case examples, but they should also stimulate discussion amongst a wide learning and teaching community.

Fluid ideas and boundaries

Sometimes, members of the Monash Education Academy (such as myself) and the Learning and Teaching Portfolio will contribute posts to which people can reply. For us, this will be a place where we can express tentative thoughts and ideas, (relatively) free from the need to sound authoritative or certain. The blog is not a place for setting out policy or asserting a unified Monash position – we have Teach HQ for that. Nor is it a place where all ideas should be polished and stable – Teach HQ, Lens and Be Inspired have that covered.

This blog is a place where Monash staff can express ourselves as individuals who are part of a learning and teaching community. Any Monash staff member is welcome to contribute a post, so long as their post focuses on issues to do with education, teaching, learning or assessment.

Our hope is that the community reached by the blog will extend to those outside of Monash, who will also read, comment on, and share posts. In this way, the blog will help us to blur the boundaries between roles and institutions, and to remember that a key purpose of education is to benefit wider society. Of course, I hope that the blog will primarily showcase and discuss work that is happening here at Monash, and that it will draw in external experts and interested colleagues to discuss that work.

Education is best when we collaborate across institutions.

Education is best when we collaborate across institutions. In that spirit, posts might also promote people and initiatives based at other universities and institutions, or highlight expertise and work that were not produced by members of our own University.

A collective enterprise

I am a great believer in conversation and open communication. It is an important part of my own personal and professional development and integral to my teaching philosophy. I see education as a collective and collaborative enterprise, where knowledge and expertise are distributed across different people with different roles, including students. I hope that you will see this blog both as a source of inspiration and a place for participation in whatever ways you feel comfortable – through a comment, a post of your own or a private message to the author.

Our hope is that the blog will be a place of respect and that we will all engage with the ideas presented here in a spirit of collegiality, curiosity, and collective learning. One of the great things about the blog format is that it is dynamic; it can be collectively reshaped and reconfigured over time. I hope that you will join the conversation.