Excellence in education rewarded
 Teaching and Learning
The 最新糖心Vlog of Adelaide recently announced its first Excellence in Education Awards designed to recognise and reward academic staff for their contribution towards enhancing the student experience. These annual awards are part of the new five-year umbrella project Excellence in Education, which brings together and gives new focus to a whole range of initiatives seeking to enhance learning and teaching. Initiatives are underway in areas such as teaching quality, curriculum development, program 最新糖心Vlog, facilities, IT services and policy development. "We want all our staff to know that learning and teaching has equal value with research, and that teaching and research should be integrated and mutually supportive activities," said Vice-Chancellor and President Professor James McWha. Five awards (one per Faculty) will be presented annually and recognise contributions by academic staff, including innovative teaching practice, curriculum development, professional development and new strategic initiatives related to learning and teaching. The inaugural award winners are: Dr Wen Soong, Dr Braden Phillips, Dr燤atthew Sorell, Mr Peter Ramsey with Mr Darryl Bosch and Associate Professor Michael Liebelt (School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Computer and Mathematical Sciences) for introductory first-year courses for Electrical and Electronic Engineering students. The curriculum emphasises the real-world context, developing system-level projects and exposing students to the broader context of the engineering profession. The courses make extensive use of online teaching resources and online燿iscussion boards with active lecturer participation. Mrs Catherine Snelling and Ms Sophie Karanicolas (School of Dentistry, Faculty of Health Sciences) developed the use of online tools to create flexibility in the first and second year of the Bachelor of Oral Health program where students are rostered for clinical sessions and benefit from an "anywhere, anytime" approach. Students are encouraged to collaborate, and to actively influence their learning environment through ongoing feedback. Use is made of blogs, interactive online learning modules and wikis. Dr Jennie Louise (School of Humanities, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences) restructured the curriculum for core components of philosophy, to improve accessibility of the material and its integration across year levels. This restructure has included revisions to teaching methodology, new texts, and significant changes in content. Significant online resources have been developed to better support students and cater to various levels of ability. Mr Josh McCarthy (School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Design, Faculty of the Professions) won his award for the use of social media in the first-year design elective course 'Imaging Our World'. The course blended virtual and physical learning environments using a virtual classroom hosted by Facebook and a physical classroom. The blended learning environment increased peer interaction and academic engagement. Dr Gerald Laurence (School of Chemistry and Physics, Faculty of Sciences) won his award for the development of a chemistry bridging course for first-year students taking foundation chemistry or biology courses. The intensive course (one lecture and three hours of tutorials for 10 days) is largely taught in small tutorial groups, with a high level of interaction and group dialogue. All winners received a certificate and a grant for $2000 to assist with their professional development. As examples of best practice, the winning projects will be published on the Excellence in Education website: Story by Robyn Mills
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