UQ academics have excelled in winning three from a total of 11 prestigious new Carrick Fellowships 2006 — including one of only three Senior Fellowships.
Four UQ academics will share in awards valued at up to $510,000 in the inaugural round of Carrick Fellowships announced today.
The Fellowships are highly prestigious, awarded to outstanding scholars who are respected advocates for excellence in learning and teaching in higher education.
The Carrick Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education has awarded a Senior Fellowship (to a maximum of $330,000) to Professor Ian Cameron of UQ’s School of Engineering to study Engineering, Science and practice: alignment and synergies in curriculum innovation.
Associate Fellowships, valued at up to $90,000 have been awarded to:
• Joint winners Professor Peter Adams and Associate Professor Phillip Poronnik of the Schools of Physical Sciences and Biomedical Sciences, to implement a project to examine Embedding quantitative principles in life sciences education; and
• Associate Professor Merrilyn Goos of UQ’s School of Education will examine Building capacity for assessment leadership via professional development and mentoring of course coordinators.
UQ Vice-Chancellor Professor John Hay, AC, congratulated the recipients whom he said all had outstanding track records in teaching and research.
“UQ is the leading University in Australia when it comes to teaching. We have won more national teaching awards than any other university and we have a long-term commitment to quality teaching and learning to benefit students,” he said.
“Professor Cameron’s Fellowship recognizes that he is an international leader in his field.
“Professor Cameron earlier this year won a Carrick Institute grant to improve higher education teaching and learning practices in Australia and won the 2003 Prime Minister’s Australian Award for Individual University Teacher of the Year, and a national AAUT award in the Physical Sciences and Related Studies category.
“Dr Goos is a previous national winner of an Australian Award for University Teaching in the Social Sciences category, while Professor Adams and Dr Poronnik are both winners of UQ Foundation Research Excellence Awards. Professor Adams won a Carrick Institute grant earlier this year and is also a previous winner of a UQ Award for Excellence in Teaching.
“This new round of Fellowships has the potential to make a real difference to teaching and learning in Australia and internationally.”
Professor Ian Cameron said the Fellowship came at “an opportune time” to bring together key national and international players in engineering education.
“My Senior Fellowship project will identify and map current and future trends in engineering practice,” he said.
“It looks to examine the impact of these practices on engineering education and how to develop alignment strategies through curriculum renewal and innovation.”
“I’ll be working closely with colleagues in Australia and in the U.S., U.K., and Continental Europe.”
The Fellowship awarded to Professor Adams and Dr Poronnik will quantify the extent of the mathematical deficiency in first year Life Science students and develop contextualised interventions to address these deficiencies. It represents a partnership between academics from biomedical and mathematics disciplines and will use an evidence-based approach.
The Fellowship to Dr Goos will work with UQ’s Teaching and Educational Development Institute (TEDI) to build the capacity of course coordinators at UQ to implement the university’s assessment policies, especially in relationship to criterion-referenced assessment. Preliminary research indicates that UQ academics new to the role of course coordinator had few formal opportunities to prepare for this role. The project aims to provide professional development leading to sustainable change in assessment practices.
Media: Further information, Jan King, 0413 601 248 or Denise Chalmers at the Carrick Institute, an initiative of DEST, telephone 02 8667 8504, denise.chalmers@carrickinstitute.edu.au.
