about us/

Learning and Teaching

We are potentially Australia’s most complex teaching and research institution, delivering vocational, higher education and research courses across more than 20 campuses, including one in Indonesia, partnering with numerous Regional University Centres and bringing online education to tens of thousands of students nationally and internationally.

Partnering with our First Nations traditional owners, our students, our communities, a wide range of industry hosts and partners, our accrediting bodies, our innovative and flexible structure allows us to foster networks and develop connections in unique ways.

We pride ourselves on developing and delivering quality courses, from professional development to research-focused, to meet local need, supported by a global network.

Our University was established out of the desire to provide education to the regions and we were one of the pioneers of distance education in Australia.

Since the early 1990s, we have expanded our on-campus offerings, and have established campuses in regional Queensland and metropolitan cities around Australia in response to student and community demand. Having a presence in these regions drives our ability to partner at local levels to support industry and community initiatives and provides access points to the University’s broader footprint.

We also recognise First Nations knowledge and claims of traditional ownership across our campus network. Our curriculum aims to reflect and embed Indigenous perspectives to build cultural knowledge and understanding in our staff and students.

Campus delivery

Our campuses are each led by a regional Associate Vice-President who supports and guides locally based staff, students, and community. We engage with our communities to identify local needs and provide feedback on learning and teaching. Our local staff and students are aligned with Schools across our distributed network. Some of our campuses are specialised – for example, our nursing laboratories to support on-campus learning are located at Rockhampton and Brisbane campuses, while our engineering courses are concentrated in Central Queensland. Read more about our regions and campus networks.

Regional University Centres

We are a leader in the Regional University Centre network, enabling support to locally based students in remote areas who are able to access on-campus-like facilities and support staff across a broad range of online courses. Read more about our Regional Universities Partnerships.

We are proud of our reputation as an inclusive, equitable institution. Our learning and teaching models are designed to support students at all stages of learning, with an emphasis on introductory programs, authentic learning, and a professionally-oriented curriculum.

Our students often find themselves in small classes with close links to academic and support staff, particularly in advanced classes and programs of study where our educators become partners, coaches, mentors, and supervisors. Our great rankings and graduate outcomes are testament to our commitment and results in terms of student engagement.

Our educators come from all walks of life and are based around the country. We are connected to our communities, and build on our personal, community, and professional and academic networks to identify opportunities for engagement and our students.

Many of our teachers remain professionally connected, as nurses, dentists, engineers, teachers, sonographers, lawyers, and psychologists.

Our educators are recognised nationally for teaching quality. Our higher education academics are scholars who reflect and act on best practice, and our vocational teachers work at the coalface of trade and industry training, often in partnership with their higher education colleagues.

Our courses are delivered within a traditional School-based structure, but across a national and global network. One course team could be teaching across multiple locations. It’s not unusual to be sitting in an on-campus class with five students, connecting to classes across multiple sites via video-conferencing technology. This helps us prepare graduates used to working in mixed teams, familiar with technology that helps with communication and organisation, while being supported in a very personalised way.

Our learning and teaching delivery is guided by a Vice-President (Academic), supported by a Deputy Vice-President (Education and Quality), a Deputy Vice-President (Office of VET Operations and Growth), and Deans across each of our Schools.

CQUniversity organises its teaching into Schools and Colleges who deliver across both vocational and higher education courses. The School of Access Education delivers our academic support, language, literacy and numeracy support and is also home to our preparatory course 'Skills for Tertiary Education Preparation’.

Our School of Graduate Research supports our research higher degree students, their supervisors, researchers, and industry partners, in collaboration with Schools with whom academic staff are aligned.

While other institutions talk about blended and flipped classrooms, we talk about integrated learning.

Our on-campus and online students are often mixed, which means students get access to professional online delivery material developed and delivered by CQUniversity staff under the watchful eye of senior curriculum designers. That’s why we’re a leading institution in the Regional University Centre network around Australia. We also have a great track record of working with industry and community to develop and deliver highly customised content. Some recent examples include our partnerships with Bravus, Whanu Binal and Rio Tinto.

We are quiet leaders in online learning.

We deliver online courses at all levels, from micro-credential modules, through to vocational and higher education courses, right through to PhD.

We believe that everyone has the right to the best possible education, wherever you are and whatever your circumstances. This requires effort and planning to make sure that our courses are accessible, relevant, and supported. All study materials are available accessibly online, supported by a ‘student first’ approach to course delivery. Our expert educators are student-focused, driven by our philosophy of inclusion and support for students. They are able to draw on significant institutional knowledge and systems honed by a long history of experience in teaching diverse cohorts in regional and remote areas, often integrated with intensive on-campus classes across our campus network.

Not only are the majority of our courses available online, but we also take a lead in innovation. For example, our hyperflexible postgraduate degrees are unique in Australia, developed in response to demand for flexibility, affordability, and accessibility.

Our integrated approach also allows us to deliver synchronous online and face to face professional development workshops aligned to creditable and non-creditable online curriculum, drawing on expertise within our qualified educator and alumni network.

Learn more about our online courses.

Our educators employ their knowledge of their discipline and best-practice in teaching delivery to support student learning.

Our vocational teachers are current in their trades and skills, and many of our higher education teachers are also practitioners as well as scholars.

All educators are supported by mentors and peers. They participate in learning and teaching scholarship through reflection, peer-review and engagement, mentoring, research, and participation in learning and teaching professional development.

Our Centre for Research in Equity and Advancement of Teaching and Education (CREATE) supports teaching scholars and education researchers to conduct formal research to inform practice, and our Learning and Teaching Research Grants scheme supports research and scholarship in student engagement, inclusion and accessibility, social innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship, and cross sector synergies. A virtual Teaching Scholarship Conference is held annually to share knowledge across all sectors, and we host a comprehensive award and recognition program to acknowledge our best educators.

Our future in learning and teaching will see us continue to partner with industry, community, staff, and students to develop and deliver professionally relevant courses in flexible and innovative ways.

As a distributed network and comprehensive university that delivers courses across the AQF spectrum, we will deliver accredited courses while also developing customised learning solutions in response to emerging need.

A sustainable and inclusive future is high on our agenda, driven by our Social Innovation Education and First Nations Education strategies. We will commit to all students through our Graduate Guarantee and integrate Alumni into our learning and teaching programs.

Philosophy and Framework

Our learning and teaching philosophy

Our learning and teaching partnerships with our various audiences is guided by our Learning and Teaching Framework. The key features of this framework:

  • Our commitment to an authentic and professionalised curriculum across all levels of course delivery
  • The value we place on academic integrity, scholarship, and building capacity in our staff and students alike
  • Our course design approach which aims to embed our values and graduate attributes, considers our diverse demographic, and emphasises support for students entering study for the first time
  • Our partnerships with organisations globally to provide work integrated learning opportunities for students
  • The opportunity that our status as Australia’s only Ashoka U accredited Changemaker university offers as we embed social innovation across our curriculum
  • Our commitment to enabling lifelong learning offering study options from one-hour micro-credentials to doctoral programs
  • Most importantly, as a university recognised for our commitment to social equity, we pride ourselves on personalised support for our students.

Our Learning and Teaching Framework

Our Learning and Teaching Framework is based on 9 guiding principles. These are:

  1. Learning at CQUniversity is a student-centred, transformative, engaging, and social endeavour that is:
    • inclusive of, and reflects, diverse perspectives and approaches to learning
    • characterised by the embedding of authentic work-based learning and addressing the evolving future of work, and
    • informed by research and collaboration with industry, communities and government.
  2. CQUniversity students can expect to have an inclusive experience that ensures they feel central and connected to the learning community, regardless of and appropriate to their mode of study.
  3. As a dual-sector institution, CQUniversity enables access to, participation in, and pathways between different levels of education, and supports all students on their learning journey.
  4. CQUniversity students will feel safe and supported to explore new ideas in creative ways.
  5. CQUniversity draws on expertise from its alumni to engage, inspire, and support students as a broader learning community.
  6. The quality of curriculum and graduates is underpinned by the CQUniversity’s expertise, values, and governance structures and regulatory framework.
  7. Teaching at CQUniversity is valued, and characterised by a culture of collaboration, scholarship, and continual self-improvement, where employees are supported to reach their full potential as educators, scholars and/or researchers.
  8. CQUniversity provides opportunity for success and recognition and celebrates the achievement of our employees and students.
  9. CQUniversity values innovation in learning design and develops customised high-quality learning resources to support employees and students.
Learning and Teaching Framework

The Learning and Teaching Framework is specifically embedded in our Curriculum Blueprint, which guides the structure and approach to our undergraduate curriculum.