Higher Ed Heroes

In this episode, Dr Seb Kaempf (usually one of our podcast co-hosts) turns interviewee to share with us how he integrates regular, 3-hour-long practical, self-experiential spaces (called ‘MediaLabs’) into his course to deepen student learning. It’s about enabling students to ‘get their hands’ dirty, to collaborate, research, discuss, and ultimately learn through practice.

Our guest in this episode is Dr Sarel Gronum (Business School at the University of Queensland), whose Masters students get thrown into proper, several week long, consultancy projects with real world business clients. Besides the challenge of building this flagship course and how he had to fine tune his own teaching role within it, Sarel talks about the centrality of ambiguity and ‘trench warfare’ for student learning.

In this episode, we talk to A/Prof Allison Mandrusiak (School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at The University of Queensland).

Coordinating a cardiorespiratory physiotherapy course, Allie has built a model hospital to replicate real clinical practices and even lets her student play cardio karaoke. But central to Allie’s teaching are the ideas of building scaffolding and safety nets into her course that help reassure her students, reduce uncertainty, and build their confidence and competence. Tune in and listen to the tips and tricks from Allie whose teaching was recognized with a UQ excellence award last year.

In this episode, we talk to Professor Chris Reus-Smit (University of Queensland) about lecturing as a performance art, about the essence of being physical, animated, and enthusiastic in order to draw students into the learning content.

In this episode, Al and Seb talk to Dr Rebecca Olive (RMIT Australia) about how students in human movement studies learn by taking on an unfamiliar sport for six weeks. It is about experiencing the strangeness of the familiar, about self-reflection, and about the development of (self)compassion.