Currently, the School is one of the largest economics schools in Australia, with over 40 academic staff. Our student numbers have increased significantly over time, and in 2007, we had 1412 equivalent full-time (graduate and undergraduate) students enrolled in economics courses. The School has consistently demonstrated its commitment to maintaining high teaching standards. For instance, the School is very active in its continuous search for leading and other highly-regarded academics.
In early 2008, a team of academic staff went to the American Economic Association Meeting in New Orleans, USA, to compete with other universities to recruit recent and PhD students nearing completion to take on lectureship positions in the School.
The School recognises staff for outstanding teaching performance and since 2007, has provided teaching-focused appointments whereby academics are encouraged to undertake research in education and teaching to improve student learning. There are also teaching and learning awards given within the School with attractive monetary incentives for research, apart from the many teaching and learning grants within the university providing opportunities to actively improve teaching and learning. We are pleased to announce that, in 2007, one of our dedicated academics, Dr Averil Cook in collaboration with four other academics from other schools won a national award worth $25 000 from the Carrick Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education Ltd. This has enabled Dr Cook to implement Peer Assisted Study Sessions (PASS) for the graduate statistics course which has a high international student enrolment and many of the students find it a very challenging course.
In 2008, one of our dedicated teaching staff, Mr. Carl Sherwood, won a UQ Teaching and Learning Strategic Grant worth $26 500. This fund will enable Mr. Sherwood to design a series of computer-based learning scenarios using specialised software developed at UQ. The scenarios will relate to various lecture topics presented in the undergraduate introductory statistics course. Over the years, many students have found this to be a very challenging course and the scenario based activities will be designed with the aim to further enhance and reinforce student learning.
Over many years, the School has been running a very successful PASS programfor the first year core courses such as microeconomics, macroeconomics and statistics. These programs are an integral part of the School’s commitment to effectively resourcing the learning environment at the very important first year level. Academic staff members in each of these areas are very actively involved in overseeing this program and working closely with the PASS co-ordinators.
The School has addressed students’ concerns that programmable calculators (which have the capacity to store a large amount of text and formula) were being used in exams which left many of those who did not own them disadvantaged. Consequently, from 2007, a calculator policy specifying the type of calculators for use in examinations was implemented.
In relation to the large numbers of students undertaking economics courses, the appointment of tutors is an important task and in conjunction with this process, a Tutor Training Program is run every year to specially cater to equipping our tutors with key skills