Teaching Excellence Awards
Four Teaching Excellence Awards were conferred in 2020 - to Dr Ann Holt, Dr Thu Ngo, Dr Xiaoying Qi, and in a Team category, Dr Joanna Winchester, Mrs Chrissy Monteleone and Dr David Lee.
Dr Ann Holt
I am a passionate and committed visual artist and Lecturer specializing in the disciplines of painting and drawing with extensive experience in subject coordination, scholarship, and research. I have held numerous appointments at several Art Schools in the university sector over the past twenty years I am Lecturer in Charge for the Painting and Drawing undergraduate units at ACU, a position I have held for thirteen years. I am also a Lecturer at the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne, where I prepare and present Lecturers, and teach both semester and intensive programs. My skill in delivering dynamic, studio-based art programs has been recognised in SELT surveys and further evidenced in the retention rates. I aim to incorporate innovative methods based on my professional practice that inspire students to achieve excellence, whilst actively promoting individual development, confidence, and independence in learning.
Dr Thu Ngo
My main teaching area is Primary Literacy Education. Since my employment at ACU in January 2017, I have been in charge of two very large consecutive core Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment (CPA) Literacy units in the B.Ed Primary program (EDLA241 and EDLA342) across Strathfield and North Sydney campuses, involving the dominant proportion of ACU enrolments. My leadership of the two units, over a sustained period of time, has allowed me to restructure the sequence of the whole teaching content in Primary Literacy Education, develop new resources incorporating innovative research-informed content and pedagogical knowledge, utilizing digital technology in literacy education in a meaningful way. In this application I would like to showcase my outstanding innovative development of curricula and resources with special focus on EDLA342, the second unit in the suite of B.Ed Primary core units that witnesses an impressive increase in the SELT data from 3.94 in 2017 to 4.88 in 2019.
Dr Xiaoying Qi
I am a sociologist. I have been a LIC, Lecturer and Tutor for SOCS207, SOCS208, SOCS300 and POLS211. Through my creating a caring, positive and effective learning environment I motivate students to engage in discussion, improve their performance, and strive for achievement of their best. By providing students with a thorough grounding in sociological theories and concepts, as well as a broad knowledge of the field, I cultivate students’ appreciation of cutting-edge developments in sociology. By discussing ideas that students tend to regard as counter intuitive, I challenge accepted ways of thinking and expand their imagination. I encourage students to appreciate the value of critical and creative thinking and show them how to be critical and creative in their own thinking. Through my connecting intellectual substance with current issues, students investigate the realities that underpin their own concerns and the socially based needs and purposes that engage students with the real world.
Dr Joanna Winchester, Mrs Chrissy Monteleone, Dr David Lee (Team category)
This award is in recognition of the outstanding contribution of a team of teachers in Work Integrated Learning (WIL) who continue to innovate, develop, assess and refine models which produces exceptional performance of PSTs across sequential, professional experience units (EDFX241, EDFX242, EDFX343, EDFX444, EDFD452). Dr. Joanna Winchester who has been teaching at ACU since 2009 and has contributed to professional experience through leadership roles and teaching. Joanna has completed research with pre-service teachers (PSTs) in special education contexts. Mrs. Chrissy Monteleone has been at ACU since 2008, leads professional experience partnerships and has taught professional experience units. Chrissy has engaged in research on mentoring and PST development in schools. Dr. David Lee has been teaching in professional experience units at ACU since 2010 including the Teaching and Learning Consortium, in partnership with schools. David has researched the influence of relationships in professional experience.
