Varsity College Coming Online to Expand Horizons

By Reis Maher – Bond University Journalism Student

Varsity College’s Senior Campus has announced it will be expanding to accommodate for new, innovative methods of education.
The College had planned to build a new senior learning center (SLC) in 2010 to incorporate modern technologies and inventive learning spaces into their curriculum.
Varsity College’s Deputy Executive Principal Miss Nicole Brazeau said the current generation of students responded better to teaching from multimedia resources.
“ICT [Information and Computing Technology] surrounds everything in the life of youth culture, so what we do here at the college should just be about extending our teaching and learning, with ICT always incidental to that,” she said.
Miss Brazeau said the design of the new space was indicative of the ways in which schools must amend curriculum to accommodate for the changing needs of today’s students.
“Because of the design of the space it [the new SLC] will challenge the boundaries of what we currently do in our teaching, the way we deliver curriculum will fundamentally change,” she said.
Varsity College’s Humanities Head of Department Megan Roderick said she was excited about the construction of new facilities and the development of a more modern curriculum.
“The curriculum can be developed so that our students are able to work a lot more at their own pace and we can have advanced students, who have completed work, continue on to the next items or even work independently on extension work,” she said.
“Therefore, teachers can work one on one with students or in small groups with those who are struggling.”
Film, Television and New Media Teacher David Reid said both the SLC and the movement to an online based curriculum was a big step forward for the college.
“It is a different generation and the learning styles have changed, so the fact of the matter is if we as professional educators don’t keep up with the way in which kids learn then we will fall behind and the outcomes we want for the students just won’t be there,” he said.