First, some Australian academic terms.
Tutor: Synonymous to TA (or teachers assistant). It is a graduate student that helps teach a course lead by a professor.
Tutorial: Synonymous to the word "recitation." It is a small class with 20 or so students and a professor or tutor where students openly discuss and ask questions on course material.
Unit: Synonymous to "class."
Course: Synonymous to "major."
Unit Outline: Synonymous to "syllabus." A basic overview of the entire class, information on what material will be covered, how exams are structured and scheduled, etc.
Mark: Synonymous to "grade."
The units I had on Monday was a marketing tutorial, Australian politics lecture and an International Business lecture. And here's a list of some interesting differences.
Keep in mind I am taking business, sociology and politics courses here instead of engineering courses. I believe some of these differences may be because of that... If I had taken all engineering courses I would be able to give a fairer comparison between the two teaching styles.
1) My schedule is much lighter. First, you can only take a maximum of four units at Swinburne, whereas I am used to at least 5 or 6 at Drexel. Second, my units are only lectures and tutorials without any labs, but this is probably because I am not taking any engineering classes while I am here. I know that some students who are taking engineering classes have classes with three parts: lecture, tutorial, and lab each week.
I don't mind this though; with some savvy scheduling I manage to have off Wednesday and Friday!
2) The work load is much lighter per course. Again, this may be because I am taking introductory level business, sociology and politics units rather than the engineering courses I am used to.
3) Professors are much more casual. We were warned about this during orientation and it is certainly true. Every professor introduced themselves with their first name and only my business professors wore anything close to professional attire.
4) Professors actively try to be much more humorous. We were warned of this at orientation too, and it is true. They all had some funny slides or pretty decent jokes given throughout the entire day. Professors brought much more humor and personality to class here than at Drexel.
5) Lectures are generally short while tutorials are long. This proportion is reversed from what I am accustomed to at Drexel. Most classes at Swinburne are one hour of lecture and two hours of recitation.
6) Learning is much more based on reading at home, followed by discussion, than anything else. This goes along well with point 5, and may help explain it. Heavier reading at home may also help explain the short lecture times.
7) There is significantly less assessment and opportunities to establish your mark. Then again Drexel is known for a lot of assessment, more than most American colleges. In a usual Drexel class I'll have a quiz every week on top of graded homework and sometimes weekly or bi-weekly lab reports. Most class marks at Swinburne are made up of a final (~50% of my mark), a midterm (~20% of my mark) and a presentation, a paper, or participation making up the remainder (~30% of my mark).
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Last, heres some pictures of two the lecture rooms I was in. They are pretty nice, I wish I had taken better quality photos of them... I posted a better picture of the Advanced Technology Centre's lecture hall in my orientation post.
The Advanced Technology Centre's lecture hall. Very cool, glass paneling on both sides of the screen. On the left you can see outside to the main part of campus, on the right to the building's foyer. Definitely my favorite lecture hall our of any I've ever had a class in.
A lecture room in the business building. It's neat that it has two screens, other than that it is very similar to the business lecture rooms at Drexel or the ones in Drexel's new biomedical engineering building.
Jack Sparrow says savvy.
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