The Pro Vice-Chancellor Education Portfolio is a central unit which supports all aspects of learning and teaching here at UNSW. As part of the UNSW 2025 Strategy, we are committed to becoming a university that is focused on fostering both research and educational excellence. Focusing on that strategic priority further, in 2021 we launched a dedicated Education and Student Experience Strategy, called "Listening, Challenging, Supporting".
We recognise that balancing teaching, research and admin is a significant challenge for new and experienced teachers. There are a range of resources available on the Teaching Gateway as well as general information to help get you set-up with the right tools and services to support you in your role.
UNSW Human Resources have the following support pages to help with administrative matters:
- Starting essentials: Get your Staff ID card, zPass for IT systems, Staff Portal (myUNSW: my.unsw.edu.au), Parking permit etc.
- Settling in: More information regarding UNSW's governance, Faculties, key services and contacts
- General Career Tools and Development: these include programs, workshops, tools and resources to help staff plan their career
The Teaching Gateway also suggests a number of ways to manage various aspects of your new role:
- Guide to Teaching at UNSW: Comprehensive support information about teaching at UNSW.
Mentoring for new teachers
Mentoring programs are an excellent way to get the guidance and support you need from experienced and talented teachers in the early stages of your teaching career.
Approach your Head of School to find out if your School or Faculty can support you with mentoring.
- Academic Mentoring at UNSW is an evidence based approach to mentoring that aims to build successful mentoring relationships across the institution.
- Career Collaborator is a UNSW-wide mentoring program which is open to all UNSW staff, affiliates and partners.
UNSW Services
- UNSW Library: each faculty has an outreach librarian who provides support to UNSW academics and researchers
- Nura Gili: is the Indigenous programs unit at UNSW
- Health and Safety at UNSW: contains documents, resources, training and other useful information relating to safety on campus. There is also the UNSW Wellbeing site which contains information around resources and events to support your wellbeing at UNSW.
- Academic Skills: offers academic skills support to UNSW students. The team also works collaboratively with Faculties and Schools to help support and develop students through skills development and workshops, to enhance graduate attributes.
- Careers and Employment: works collaboratively with academic and professional staff to provide high quality career education that will enhance the employability of UNSW students. The Careers and Employment office also provide workshops, seminars, opportunities for industry experience and advice to students to achieve life long success.
- Support for implementing educational adjustments: The Equitable Learning Service (ELS) provides support to students to access educational adjustments via the development of the Equitable Learning Plan (ELP). The Equitable Learning Advisors are also available to provide support to Academic staff regarding the implementation of educational adjustments.
Policies and Procedures
The following UNSW Policies and Procedures may be useful to familiarise yourself with as a new teacher at UNSW. This list is not exhaustive - all policies and procedures can be found on the UNSW Governance website by searching the Policy List
- Academic Code of Conduct
- Assessment Design Procedure
- Assessment Implementation Procedure
- Assessment Policy
- Higher Degree Research Supervision Guidelines
- Higher Degree Research Supervision Policy
- Higher Degree Research Supervision Procedure
- Plagiarism Policy
- Plagiarism Procedure - Managing Plagiarism for Students Enrolled in Coursework Programs Procedure
- Program Delivery Procedure
- Program Design Procedure
- Program Design and Delivery Policy
See also
With education as a focus, there are a range of professional development options available to UNSW teaching staff to further enhance their teaching
Education Focussed Careers offer a new career path for academics who are talented and passionate teachers and are key to the enrichment of the student experience at UNSW.
There are a growing number of both formal and informal communities of practice, groups and networks in learning and teaching at UNSW. These communities are formed around a shared area of interest in learning and teaching.
An online student survey to boost student feedback and create a culture of continuous improvement, the myExperience process leads to course and teaching quality enhancement only if student perceptions of their learning experience prompt you into reflection, and then into action.
Speak to your faculty contact for more information around support for sessional staff. Some faculties also offer discipline specific support for sessional staff. There are also resources available which help sessional staff tackle the key areas and issues related to teaching and learning.
Online courses, resources and how to access support for technology enabled learning and teaching such as Moodle and mediaUcreate.