Co-authored by Mais Fatayer and Giulia Clemente
The value of self-paced learning extends beyond its obvious benefits, such as the ability to study independently and the flexibility to manage your schedule. It also offers a deeper and more meaningful advantage: the opportunity for personal and private growth.
In higher education, we work alongside brilliant minds who have spent decades mastering their disciplines, becoming the go-to experts in complex fields. Yet, effectively teaching this knowledge requires a different skillset that needs dedicated support and guidance.
Here lies a delicate paradox: those with the highest academic standing may find it challenging to allocate time to reflect on teaching practices with their heavy research workload and teaching appointments. So with this in mind, how do we ensure that we create effective professional development opportunities for academics, given those challenges?
In this blog, Giulia and I aim to explore self-paced learning as one approach to academic professional development. Giulia suggested that self-paced learning creates a safe space for this kind of vulnerable learning. It removes the social risk of admitting uncertainty, allowing even the most accomplished academics to explore, experiment, and develop their teaching craft without the pressure of public scrutiny. In this protected space, Giulia added an insightful point that vulnerability becomes a pathway to growth rather than a threat to reputation, which I also think is a powerful shift, transforming a potential barrier into an opportunity for genuine professional development.
On-demand and autonomous learning
I’d like to acknowledge up front that for academics, finding time for professional development can feel impossible. Between lectures, research, marking, and governance commitments, the idea of squeezing in a fixed workshop often just doesn’t fit. That is precisely where self-paced learning changes the game. It offers a flexible, sustainable way to build teaching skills, available anytime, anywhere.
Many universities deliver consistent, high-quality resources across faculties and campuses, while academics have the freedom to engage when it works for them. For instance, universities such as the University of Queensland, UNSW and the University of Sydney offer academics a range of professional learning opportunities, many in a self-paced format. The materials are always available and easy to revisit, enabling them to refresh their knowledge and refine their skills over time.
Similarly, at UTS, we also see that the real power of self-paced learning lies in its self-directed learning principles. For academics, it puts them in control of their growth: they choose their goals, decide how to reach them, and reflect on what is working. It also draws on constructivist ideas, recognising that real expertise comes from connecting new strategies to their teaching context, experimenting, and building on prior knowledge. Academics move forward when they are ready, not when the clock says so, which means they can dig deeper into the topics that matter most to them and their students.
Effective professional development transcends initial training and requires sustained engagement over time and learning through practical experience (Price & Lizier, 2024). Self-paced learning supports this by being flexible, accessible, and relevant, allowing academics to take ownership of their progress and engage with content that meets their evolving needs and schedules.
Additionally, this approach has important benefits for busy academics, enabling them to weave learning into their schedule, revisit concepts as their teaching evolves, and try out ideas in real time. It respects their autonomy while encouraging the kind of reflective practice that leads to enhancing the learning experience.
What makes good self-paced learning?
According to Englmeier (2024), a good self-paced learning experience combines flexibility with structured guidance. It allows learners to access content anytime and progress at their own rhythm, while also breaking down complex topics into manageable chunks and supporting them with tools such as summaries and search functions. Effective self-paced learning also encourages metacognitive behaviours, helping learners monitor and regulate their study efforts through prompts, suggested breaks and feedback on progress. Finally, it supports movement between abstract and detailed levels of understanding (the semantic wave), enabling learners to build robust mental models and retain knowledge over time.
These design principles are good for two main reasons: they support immediate learning outcomes and contribute to ongoing professional growth. A good self-paced learning experience acknowledges that professional development is an ongoing journey rather than a one-time event. In the context of universities, this means designing opportunities that support continuous growth for academics throughout their careers, not just at the start.
Discovering perspectives through learning design
As learning designers, we’re tasked with creating experiences that truly serve our learners, whether they are students, professional colleagues or academics, which means constantly examining our assumptions and expanding our toolkit. Our September UTS Learning Design Meetup on effective practices in self-paced learning will provide an opportunity not only to reflect on self-paced learning but also to discover strategies for creating meaningful learning experiences.
We’ll begin our session by exploring two fundamental questions that will anchor our discussions:
- What does ‘self-paced learning’ mean to you?
- What does effective self-paced learning look like?
By the end of our time together, we’ll revisit these same questions to discover whether our perspectives have taken on new dimensions. We hope that participants will be able to leave with new insights to add to their learning design toolkit.
Many thanks to Amanda Lizier (Senior Lecturer, Teaching Learning and Curriculum Unit, Education Portfolio, UTS) for her valuable feedback on this blog.