Coastal engineering courses are multi-disciplinary and complex. It is important to develop a self-learning environment for undergraduate students to grasp basic principles and relate them to professional practice. In this article, a student on-line selflearning model is introduced to encourage deep learning by students. The flexible learning model provides an instance where the context and materials are set up by the teacher but the learning itself is self-directed. The model is implemented in both the University of Sydney and Griffith University for various course structures and class size.