Award Winners 2010
Citations for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning
- Dr Sharon Andrew - School of Nursing and Midwifery - Bridging the research-teaching nexus: applying educational research to ensure an evidence-based approach for improved student outcomes in nursing programs.
- Dr Katrina Barker - School of Education - Creating an atmosphere of intellectual excitement to influence, inspire and motivate diverse groups of students preparing for careers in teaching.
- Dr Margaret Clarke - School of Education - For leading quality change in teacher education and influencing improvement of teaching and learning practices through her scholarly work at the University of Western Sydney.
- Dr Catherine Camden-Pratt - School of Education - For foregrounding critical creativity: establishing safe spaces for experimentation using creative learning approaches which transform students' understanding of themselves as agents of change.
- Dr Roumen Dimitrov - School of Communication Arts - For successful experiential and engaged learning and teaching that educates public relations students to stand out as professionals.
- Dr Fernanda Duarte - School of Management - For effectively facilitating transformative learning in a management school through sound scholarship and engaging experientially-based approaches that inspire students to think more critically and ethically.
- Dr Adrian Renshaw - School of Natural Sciences - For excellence in Science teaching broadening participation, engagement and inspiring students to learn using approaches in assessment and feedback that foster independent learning.
- Dr Leanne Rylands - School of Computing and Mathematics - For sustained quality contributions to mathematical learning for all ability levels and backgrounds by motivating and inspiring students in an open, positive and passionate environment.
- Dr Satomi Kawaguchi - School of Humanities and Languages - The '3-New' approach: Using second language acquisition research, new communication technologies and pedagogy to motivate, inspire and engage students of Japanese for better learning outcomes.
- Dr Mark Williams - School of Natural Sciences - Innovative online resources provide quality, timely and constructive feedback: enhancing student learning for diverse student cohorts in Chemistry.
Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC)
Michael has taught widely within the university sector for the past 13 years at both the University of Western Sydney (10 years) and the University of NSW (3 years) and is regularly invited to give guest lectures at Sydney University, the University of NSW and Central Queensland University in the complex and ever changing area of Taxation Law.
His unique and engaging style of teaching, not only stimulates the learning process for students, but provides a motivating platform for students to connect with the principles of life long learning. A particular success story includes one of his tax students being appointed as the last Associate to Justice Michael Kirby of the High Court. His innovative approach has been recognised both nationally and internationally with an extensive peer reviewed publication record in leading teaching journals with invitations to contribute to special issues on legal education and invitations to present at academic staff seminars, both in Australia and overseas.
All students in the UWS graduate entry secondary teacher education program complete two conventional discipline-based block practicum in schools (Professional Experience 1 and 2), AND in Professional Experience 3 (PE3), they complete an additional 60 hours of volunteer work in a service learning context directly addressing social disadvantage and equity.
PE3 is unique to UWS and provides pre-service teachers with opportunities to acquire dispositions and skills that directly enhance their efficacy as teachers and their commitment to educational outcomes for students with diverse backgrounds and complex needs. Multiple PE3 strands have evolved with community partners enabling the program to be responsive to emerging needs, flexible enough to invite approaches from new partners and well regarded. Partners include large organisations from government departments, through NGOs and the not-for-profit sector to small schools and other educational sites. Pre-service teachers select from a range of partnership strands or design an original project to meet an identified need. New strands and partnerships have emerged from these student-initiated projects. Pre-service teachers critically reflect on their experiences and expectations using PE3 to both extend and critique their learning in other parts of the course. PE3 therefore represents a different way of exploring curriculum for the pre-service teachers. Geographically, the scope of PE3 incorporates international, rural and remote partner placements and urban placements in Greater Western Sydney. Most members of the secondary teaching team in the School of Education are involved as strand leaders.
The PE3 program and its strands have received various awards and grants. Although its focus on educational success with young people in partner organisations is not explicitly directed towards higher education access, PE3 meets many of the conditions for success identified in the DEEWR Report Interventions early in school as a means to improve higher education outcomes for disadvantaged (particularly low SES) students (Gale et al., 2010) and the ALTC Report Engaging with Learning: Understanding the impact of practice-based learning exchanges (Barraket et al., 2009).
