QUT has been recognised for education excellence and delivering outstanding learning programs after receiving three prestigious Australian Awards for University Teaching worth $25,000 each.
The awards were presented in Canberra by Minister for Education and Training Simon Birmingham to celebrate those individuals and groups who have made outstanding contributions to enhancing student learning outcomes and equipping students to be agile and creative citizens.
Professor Gayle Kerr from the QUT Business School was recognised for teaching excellence, and QUT’s Sessional Success Program and STIMulate program were recognised for enhancing learning outcomes.
Professor Kerr uses the strategy and creativity inherent in the advertising discipline, which she once practised and now teaches, to enhance the learning experiences of advertising students at QUT and to lead advertising education nationally and internationally.
She believes students and teachers can co-construct knowledge, and uses the advertising practice of engagement as an education model to ignite students’ insight, so they participate in learning, share their experiences and commit to ongoing partnerships.
Professor Kerr has produced many innovations during her 21-year leadership of QUT’s advertising program, including Australia’s first postgraduate advertising program, first integrated marketing communication program, and first digital advertising units.
She also founded the Australian and New Zealand Academy of Advertising (2007) as a network of academic support and a platform to improve student learning outcomes nationally.
Internationally through Professor Kerr’s leadership positions in the American Academy of Advertising (AAA), she benchmarks world’s best practice in advertising education and ensures its adoption in Australia.
Michelle Fox and Professor Jillian Hamilton were honoured for designing and delivering a holistic Sessional Success Program (SSP) to enable and inspire QUT’s 2500 front-line sessional teachers.
The program aims to empower sessional academics to optimise students’ learning.
The Sessional Success Program’s experiential curriculum builds sessionals’ capacity to create engaging learning experiences, communicate effectively, enhance physical and online learning environments, support and assess student learning, and evaluate and reflect for continuous teaching improvement.
Participants apply learning in their classes and, to inspire and promote teaching excellence, they share and are recognised for achievements in faculty and university-wide Sessional Teaching and Reflection Showcases.
A systematic distributed leadership strategy develops the capacity of high-achieving sessionals as Sessional Academic Success Advisors to design and deliver bespoke, local academic development; offer peer support; and foster communities of teaching practice in schools.
These nationally awarded strategies set an aspirational sector benchmark and together they realise a powerful holistic approach with unprecedented increases in sessional teachers’ engagement and passion, which profoundly influences students’ learning experience, engagement, and success.
The STIMulate program is an innovative support-for-learning program that engages thousands of students annually to boost their success in maths, science and IT.
Offered across all QUT campuses and disciplines, it caters for diverse student abilities and ambitions, from the struggling who aspire to pass, to the high-achievers who wish to excel.
Providing students with seamless integrated access to peer drop-in sessions with 160 experienced student volunteers, academic assistance from nine discipline specialists and online resources, STIMulate’s success is demonstrated by enhanced student learning in target areas and career-enhancing outcomes for participating students.
Distinctively, STIMulate’s whole-of-institution approach is premised on systemic and sustainable collaborations among students, staff, faculties, divisions and QUT-wide service providers including the Library Academic Skills, Peer Programs, Counselling, IT Services and STEM education networks.
Integral to QUT’s Support-for-Learning Network, the team works in partnership with the wider academic community.
Media contact:
Sandra Hutchinson, QUT Media (Tue, Wed), 07 3138 9449 or media@qut.edu.au
After hours, Rose Trapnell, 0407 585 901
