Teachers, school managers, academics and education policy makers are gathering at the Sunshine Coast this week to look at teaching success based on proven, evidence-based practices.

The inaugural 'Learning Management: Pedagogy that works' conference is being held at the Twin Waters Resort on the Sunshine Coast, and is being hosted by CQU Noosa Hub.

Professor Richard Smith

Noosa Hub's Dr David Turner said that, despite cyclonic weather on the Sunshine Coast,  educators from across Australia gathered for the 3-day conference about the art and science of teaching and learning.

"The conference has been organised by Central Queensland University and has brought together some of the nation's leading researchers, academics and teaching professionals to explore evidenced-based teaching practices that have a positive effect on learning outcomes for students.

"The conference aims to generate debate about what teachers, schools and education are all about".

Dr Turner said that, in presenting the opening keynote address of the conference, Executive Dean of the Faculty of Arts Humanities & Education, Professor Richard Smith, provoked lively debate among delegates from various sectors of the learning industry. 

"Richard spoke passionately about the partnerships created between schools and the Bachelor of Learning Management; about the need for them to be true and equal partnerships; and about the need for all parties to be dedicated to a futures orientation, if learning is to be relevant to students.

"He spoke of the need to push people to the edge to achieve excellence," Dr Turner said.

Professor Smith was adamant that, "one of the dilemmas for our profession, and by that I mean learning industries, is that we tend to look at the past. When we do this we reproduce the past," he said.

"The world is changing so the challenge is: Don't benchmark; ‘futuremark'!"

Professor Smith spoke about and gave examples of "disruptive innovations' in the information technology and mobile phone industry.

He stated that the Bachelor of Learning Management is a prime example of this "disruptive innovation". and confessed the BLM was "quite specifically designed to undermine and ‘collapse' the Bachelor of Education".