Flexible Provisions for Students: Nodes and Institutes in Interstate and Overseas Locations
The programs (Doctorates, Masters and Postgraduate Diplomas) are all available for full–time, parttime and external study. Some units are available for concentrated study during school holidays (see below), and all units are available for study using distance education methods. Students can choose to study using the internet/World Wide Web, CD–ROMs or print materials.
A hallmark of SMEC/Key Centre’s postgraduate programs is that they have the flexibility to allow a person anywhere in the world to undertake part–time postgraduate studies while residing at home and continuing in full–time employment. Not only is sophisticated information technology used to deliver coursework via distance education and to maintain regular contact, but SMEC/Key Centre takes its postgraduate programs to its students by establishing nodes and offering institutes in numerous locations to address the specific needs of the students.
Because postgraduate students need support and a significant degree of face–to–face contact, especially when distant and isolated from campus, the Centre has established an increasing number of ’nodes’ of students interstate and around the world. Students in these nodes undertake the same doctoral coursework as internal students by attending concentrated ’institutes’ taught by SMEC staff in remote locations at times convenient to students (e.g. in school holidays). (Assessment tasks are undertaken after the institutes while maintaining email contact.) In these nodes, students who have reached the research stage also meet regularly face–to–face to gain support from each other, from their visiting SMEC supervisors, and from local Adjunct staff who have been appointed to assist. Currently, groups of students meet together on a regular basis in Miami and New York in the USA, New Zealand, South Africa, Singapore and Thailand. Students in these nodes receive support, motivation, guidance and care from SMEC staff right from the beginning of their research studies, and therefore their specific needs are identified through early contact with staff.
Both the initiation of a new node and decisions about the nature of the postgraduate program offered in different nodes are based on extensive consultation with potential doctoral students and employer groups in that location regarding: the ideal timing of institutes and visits for thesis support; the ideal set of coursework units to offer as institutes; and the range of thesis topics that will be offered for supervision. For example, the important focus in the Miami nodes is to provide leaders in science and mathematics education to replace the ageing leadership in Miami – Dade County Public School’s. On the other hand, the South African node’s emphasis is providing doctoral graduates to be teacher educators in science and mathematics education in universities across South Africa, while the Thai node’s emphasis is providing doctoral graduates who are experts in the teaching of the content of science and mathematics at the tertiary level