Teaching and learning

Teaching and learning

Learning for the future

At Adelaide University, we’re shaping Australia’s most flexible, future-focused learning and teaching experience – an experience that puts you at the centre. 

You’ll access world-class face-to-face teaching, supported by the latest learning technologies, providing richer, more accessible study options that connect you to educators and peers through active, engaged learning.  

You’ll also be connected to Adelaide University’s expert industry partners, who help shape our teaching and collaborate on our research. Enjoy extensive hands-on learning, informed by leading industry professionals, so you’ll leave with the skills they’re looking for in future colleagues.   

Develop other in-demand skills that extend beyond your profession, skills that will equip you for the challenges of tomorrow. Learn how to think inclusively and ethically, how to look at the bigger picture and how to innovate. You’ll learn to be the sort of person people like having on their team.  

At Adelaide University, we’re shaping a learning and teaching experience for the future – and that future is you.

Knowledge areas

Common Core

The modern world is complex and competitive. To succeed, you need more than professional skills, as important as they are. You need something to set you apart – Adelaide University’s Common Core, a suite of interdisciplinary courses designed to prepare Adelaide University graduates for the future. These courses foster the skills our industry partners tell us they want in every employee, no matter their profession.

How is the Common Core different?

All undergraduate students in eligible programs study our Common Core, so you’ll engage with peers from across the university, not just your discipline area. This helps you appreciate diverse perspectives and understand how your discipline intersects with others and impacts wider society.

Studying the Common Core

Most undergraduate students will take one common core course per year of study, choosing from six knowledge areas that will roll out progressively across 2026 and 2027. You’ll select the common core courses you want to study from knowledge areas highly valued by employers, including: 

  • Artificial Intelligence: Introduces the fundamental principles, techniques, and real-world applications of AI.  

  • Data Knowledges: Explores data types, sources, and structures, best practices for collecting, managing, and analysing data, and strategies for evaluating and communicating information effectively.  

  • Entrepreneurship and Design Thinking: Develops the tools and mindset to identify opportunities, develop sustainable solutions, and drive positive change.   

  • Ethical Knowledges: Uncovers the fundamental principles of moral reasoning and their application to real-world situations.  

  • Intercultural Understanding: Fosters cross-cultural communication and competency and a deeper understanding of how one’s cultural background shapes life experiences.   

  • First Nations Knowledges: Focuses on learning about Aboriginal voices and ways of knowing, being and becoming.

Introducing the Common Core

Graduate

The Adelaide Academy

The Adelaide Academy is a future-focused initiative designed to offer high-potential and high performing students the opportunity to take their studies to the next level. As Adelaide University establishes itself, the Academy will grow to offer a suite of enriched learning experiences that go beyond the core curriculum.

These experiences may include: 

  • Advanced discipline-based coursework

  • Industry engagements and internships 

  • Research projects

  • Interdisciplinary workshops and challenges. 

The Academy is being developed to recognise and support academic excellence and ambition and will evolve over time to reflect the needs of high-performing students and the expectations of a competitive global workforce.

In 2026, the Adelaide Academy will begin to roll out pilot opportunities across selected disciplines, with the goal of progressively expanding its offerings. These pilot programs will serve as the foundation for an evolving and expanding Adelaide Academy model in the years ahead. 

Engagement with industry and community

The Adelaide Academy is co-developed with industry and community partners, who are helping to shape its future direction. Academy members will have access to a range of experiences including: 

  • Presentations and resources from industry professionals focused on professional and career readiness skills such as leadership, communication, and digital capability

  • Collaborative learning experiences and projects developed with industry leaders, inspired by models such as the Innovation Academy with Accenture

  • Deep, immersive opportunities including work-integrated learning, internships, and research projects, similar to those offered through programs like the Deloitte Academy and Defence Science and Technology Group (DSTG) summer scholarships. 

Who can join the Adelaide Academy?

While entry pathways are yet to be finalised, in 2026 the Academy will be open to new Adelaide University students in eligible programs who demonstrate strong academic performance.

Work Integrated Learning

Adelaide University is dedicated to embedding Work Integrated Learning (WIL) into all coursework programs, ensuring every student can gain practical experience alongside their academic studies. 

The WIL framework at Adelaide University is built on the principles of education, experience, and enterprise, helping you foster the hands-on skills our industry partners tell us they want in future colleagues. 

Adelaide University aims to integrate WIL into course design across all disciplines, improve skill assessment through surveys and best practice showcases, and promote WIL opportunities by collaborating with industry peak bodies and employers.

First Nations Knowledges

First Nations Knowledges are meaningfully embedded into all Adelaide University curriculum through careful and purposeful collaboration with Indigenous scholars, academics, Elders and Aboriginal Communities and Knowledge Holders. 

Cultural safety, strengths-based approaches, and centring Aboriginal voices and ways of knowing, being and becoming are emphasised and integrated across all our study areas.  

Adelaide University is committed to a whole-of-institution approach to First Nations priorities while advancing inclusivity and equity throughout the university.

Adelaide University Graduate Qualities

Adelaide University’s Graduate Qualities will equip you with the values and skills required to navigate the modern world and position you for success into the future. 

Our graduate qualities underpin all our teaching and learning, shaping the educational journey of all our students, so you will graduate as:   

  • A lifelong learner with enduring passion for personal and professional development

  • An ethical leader, who does what is right over what is easy 

  • A strategic problem solver, who approaches challenges with analytical rigour and creative insight

  • A global citizen, with respect for your role in the world and your capacity to enact positive change 

  • A resilient thinker, able to succeed by harnessing critical, creative and adaptable thinking

  • A trusted communicator, who can articulate ideas effectively and inspire change.