The Professional Development for Casual Academic Staff (PDCAS) program

The PDCAS program was originally introduced in Semester 1, 2005 to assist new staff who are relatively inexperienced university educators. The program has been developed with an emphasis on a student-centred/learning-centred approach to teaching - an approach that will lead to deep (rather than surface) learning. It is premised on current educational theory, but is designed to be practical in nature.

The intention is that the program is to be completed in the first trimester of employment as a casual academic - Tutor, Demonstrator or Marker.

Program structure

For Trimester 1, 2012, the PDCAS program is structured as follows:

• The ITL program is organised in modules. Each module takes notionally 2 hours and staff are paid for this time. A certificate signed by the Director of the Institute of Teaching and Learning and the Program Coordinator is provided for tutors who successfully complete the program. Demonstrators and Markers also receive a certificate upon completion of the relevant module.

• Now that the university has transitioned to the Desire2Learn (D2L) learning management system, the PDCAS program for Trimester 1 is available to casual academic staff in the new D2L environment.

Individual progress through the program is monitored by the Institute of Teaching and Learning, who authorise payment to casual academics once they successfully complete the relevant modules of the program. The casual academic does not need to submit a timesheet for this payment.

Program for demonstrators

Program for markers

Program for tutors

Tutors complete a total of five modules: four compulsory modules and one from the list of optional modules.

The Teaching in tutorials module, together with the Assessment and feedback module are offered in face to face sessions (2 hours each) in the first four weeks of trimester, at each of Deakin's major campuses. Details of these sessions are available at
http://www.deakin.edu.au/itl/ers/

For those casual academics unable to attend these face-to-face sessions, equivalent versions of both modules can be completed online during the period of the trimester.

All the remaining modules in the program are completed online via Desire2Learn in the Deakin Studies Online (DSO) environment.

Program coordinator

The ITL program is coordinated by Terry Timberlake at the Institute of Teaching and Learning (ITL), Waterfront Campus:

Email: t.timberlake@deakin.edu.au
Phone: (03) 5227 8167 (ext 78167)