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How do you save $8 million dollars and still provide students with a world class teaching experience?

This is the quandary that faced the Head of School of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine (PaLM) Wendy Erber.

One of UWA's biggest Schools needed a solution to tackle the flood of students from New Courses 2012 and overcome the dilemma of increased class sizes.

E-learning was the only answer.

Renovating the QEII M Block teaching facilities to provide bigger wet laboratories was not economically feasible so a change in curriculum delivery supported by technologically enhanced classrooms and a team of educational experts was her answer.

"We needed to change the way we taught," Professor Erber said.

This strategy slashed the projected costs of refurbishments from $14 million to less than $6 million.

The New Approaches to Teaching (NATT) team was established as the driving force behind the pedagogical shift from traditional cost-heavy ‘wet' lab classes to modern student-centred e-learning.

Associate Professor Kimberley Roehrig from PaLM, Education Officer Peter Browne from Sydney University, and Administrative Officer Jake Dennis comprise the team.

"In just over a year we have built a multitude of e-learning resources, including online practical modules with automated feedback and marking, multimedia-rich online databases, learner-centred in-class activities and interactive instructional videos," Associate Professor Roehrig said. .

"We have smashed expectations of what we thought we could achieve for this School but the biggest change has been in the attitude of our academic staff towards e-learning."

The jewel of PaLM's educational revolution is the multi-coloured Wi-Fi fitted 174 seat e-learning suite, with 29 desks, for groups of six students, each fitted with two Mac mini computers, two high-definition video screens, and enough ports for everyone to connect HDMI portable devices.

Clinical Senior Lecturer Dr Ee Mun Lim was pleasantly surprised after teaching her first class in PaLM's new e-learning suite.

"At first I felt trepidation about this new style of teaching but e-modules are better than lectures where students are bored. Here, students are more engaged and self-sufficient," Dr Lim said.

The new system provides active engagement with teachers and demonstrators.

"It's daunting being put on the spot and asked questions in front of a whole class," said one group of students who sit and learn together in the Blue Room each Friday.

"But in these classes, we work as a group to solve the problems ourselves."

"This room is AWESOME," wrote another student on the whiteboard in the Red Room.

Professor Erber is proud of her School's achievement. Despite resource constraints and exponential growth in enrolments, the M Block e-learning facility and the School's new approaches to teaching, have given staff and students a reason to look forward to a bright future.