Teaching Challenges and Innovation Symposium
Teaching Challenges and Innovation
Symposium 2022
Our Education team hosted our annual Teaching Challenges and Innovation Symposium in mid-December, bringing together our educators and leaders from across the medical faculty in an interactive day-long event focused on the theme ‘Public Health Impact’.
Now in its seventh year, the forum brings our educators, educational designers and researchers together to learn from each other, contextualise their own work in the wider University picture, and workshop shared challenges to generate ideas that could improve the quality of our educational offerings ongoing.
Head of School Prof Sophia Zoungas kicked off proceedings by welcoming guests and sharing our School’s new strategic framework, zeroing in on our world class education programs. The new strategy provides a timely and carefully crafted framework around which we will build our future educational offerings.
She was followed by our keynote speaker, Deputy-Vice Chancellor (Education) Prof Sharon Pickering. Prof Pickering described the University-wide impact that she’s observed from our School, citing several clear examples of excellence. She also elaborated on the University’s education plan 2022–2025, with a focus on flagship rich experiences including the Global Immersion Guarantee (GIG), and noted our recent successes in creating accessible and inclusive courses that have attracted diverse student cohorts. We were thrilled to hear her picking up on key areas that we’ve targeted.
After her presentation, education staff from across our School provided a series of vignette-style talks, focusing on priority areas for this year, including international collaboration in Asia, student placement activities, a reflection on the delivery of a new course to train frontline workers responding to disclosures of sexual violence, industry engagement opportunities, and a report on the delivery of a new clinical trials masterclass. The hard-won knowledge and experiences passed on in these snapshots gave our attendees an inspiring glimpse into what innovative concepts they may incorporate into their own educational ventures, and made clear who they can approach for advice and guidance on similar projects.
Following a short tea break, attendees rolled up their collective sleeves to begin the workshopping portion of the event, a series of ‘solution stations’ coordinated by educational designer Prudence Perry. Randomised teams worked on core real-world challenges that impact the sustainability of our programs and our overall student experiences, including:
- How can we integrate the lived experiences of our international students?
- What are the best approaches to assess teamwork in group assessments?
- How can we attract and retain students in our units and courses?
Event Chair Prof Basia Diug said later, “I’m really proud of this event, we’re all passionate about teaching public health and events like this provide our team with a structured opportunity to learn and share about our practice and key challenges we all face. It’s a vital professional development opportunity that means their year is capped off with positive reflection, leaving us all energised and enthusiastic for the next term.
“I want to thank everyone involved in making this a success, in particular Emily Tran, Prudence Perry, all our educators and the MERQ team, and all of our presenters.”