FoA L&T Awards

2022 Winners

Early Career award

This award recognises excellence in teaching by an early career academic.

Dr Madeline Taylor – Macquarie Law School
Madeline has undertaken significant work on re-developing the commercial law curriculum. Madeleine worked with legal profession and Indigenous leaders to develop a case-based model that connects doctrinal aspects of commercial law curriculum to climate change, the housing crisis, and systemic racism in the commercial legal sector. Hers is one of the first commercial law curriculums in Australia that elevate Indigenous legal perspectives to problem-solve some of those issues. She’s also developed opportunities for students to showcase their work to the profession – through InHouse Counsel, a peer-reviewed practitioner journal. This is a great motivator for students (giving them the opportunity to see the work they do in the unit recognised beyond the University), and also testament to how the profession regards the work Madeline has been doing in commercial law teaching.

Learning Innovation award

This award recognises staff who are committed to the philosophy of improving the quality of student learning through innovation.

Team from Department of History and Archaeology and FoA learning design
Ronika Power, Michael Rampe, Beverley Miles, Mary Hartley, Jacinta Carruthers, Crystal Miller, and Hannah Vogel
The team was awarded for the work they did to innovate and implement digital story assessments over five years in Archaeology and Ancient History, as well as the impact their work has had on the Faculty’s approach to digital learning through their contributions to the creation of the Adobe Digilab in our Arts precinct. The team developed a well-thought out and scaffolded approach to reimagining how student digital skills could be developed in conjunction with investing in staff digital skill development, and their work has shaped digital learning not only in the discipline but also contributed to a larger project on how we teach digital skills across the Faculty.

Teaching Excellence award

This award recognises staff for the impact they have on influencing, motivating and inspiring students to learn.

Alexandra Woods – Department of History and Archaeology
This is an excellent example of the work being done in Archaeology at MQ around shifting the discipline’s teaching lens. Alex’s teaching and curriculum development in first year Ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern Archaeology units focuses on how archaeology can contribute to a more equitable society. Alex has developed and embedded inclusive and justice-oriented pedagogical methods into her units, challenging students and staff to think about how the region’s archaeological past is valued, owned and contested not just in the academic world but also in public communities. First year Ancient Egyptian and Near Eastern Archaeology units now ask staff and student to consider who benefits from archaeology, who is harmed, how archaeology might contribute to a more equitable society, and what responsible 21st century archaeology looks like.

John De Nobile – Macquarie School of Education
John was awarded for a long-term reflective program focused on engaging students experiences and pedagogical needs to shape his teaching practice. John’s application was supported by student feedback that highlighted his passion for engaging with students as a community of scholars. Every aspect of John’s teaching has been shaped by his mission to support students to feel they have a real stake in decisions made about their learning. Developing trust between students and teachers has increased student engagement in curriculum and assessment in John’s units, and in particular from at-risk students (whose educational success has increased significantly).

Educational Leadership award

This award recognises leadership that has enhanced learning and teaching and student experience.

Eva Anagnostou – Department of History and Archaeology
This is another example of the excellent work being done to redesign the Ancient History curriculum. Eva redeveloped AHIS1200 – Myth in the Ancient World drawing on extensive research from the discipline, including insights from her own research projects, to challenge the idea that we can teach ancient mythology in Australia without including Indigenous Dreamtime stories and Songlines. In her delivery of this unit, Eva also saw an opportunity to mentor and support staff to develop the confidence to take initiatives and share teaching experiences as part of this shift in the lens of teaching in the discipline. She worked with her team to build in them the confidence to openly debate pedagogy a part of her project to rethink how the discipline can and should be taught.

Fay Hadley, Rebecca Andrews, Michael Cavanagh, Iain Hay, John Ehrich – Macquarie School of Education
This project was very much a team-based effort, drawing on the expertise of a range of colleagues and external experts (including moderation and professional bodies), to meet accreditation requirements at a difficult and unstable time during internal curriculum and external accreditation changes. The team developed and implemented an authentic assessment for Teacher Education Students (TES), the Macquarie University Teaching Performance Assessment (MUTPA) into initial teaching education courses. The team’s work has been endorsed by Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, and the Institute has used the MUTPA to train Executive Officers from regulatory authorities, across all states and territories in 2022.