Excellence in teaching

Boris Martinac is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine. As the co-ordinator of the second-year unit Pharmacology 200, he received the Excellence in Teaching Award for the best unit in 1998. This award represents a joint effort by the Guild and the University to recognise and reward exemplary teaching.

Universities trace their spiritual origins to the 'studia generalia' of the Middle Ages, which were centres of study licensed and empowered by ecclesiastical or secular authority to disseminate knowledge and grant academic degrees to students of all classes and nationalities. Universities have continued to follow this noble tradition to this very date. Australian universities today continue to fulfil their licensed vocation although they are exposed to increasing pressures to maintain quality of education and exhibit flexibility in adopting new ways of knowledge dissemination at a decreased level of financial support from the government. Furthermore, university lecturers face a challenge to train students for lifelong learning and developing strategies to effectively keep up with the ever-growing body of factual knowledge. This is particularly true in teaching science or medicine. Moreover, modern biomedical sciences are increasingly multidisciplinary, which requires educators to acquire knowledge in disciplines not necessarily directly related to their own area of expertise. Engaging actively in the laboratory research is the best way to keep up with new developments and maintain the ability to transmit to students the enthusiasm for and understanding of a subject. I firmly believe that excellence in research is one of the major prerequisites for excellence in teaching science at both undergraduate and graduate levels.

In regard to teaching pharmacology, second and third-year students in specific, the overall philosophy of the Department of Pharmacology has been to foster critical and independent thinking, essential for any scientific discipline. After being introduced to the general concepts and molecular principles underlying the actions of drugs used in medicine and society, students are exposed to a series of lectures on specialized topics covering the action of drugs on different body systems and organs. Lectures are accompanied by practical classes in which students have the opportunity to perform simple experiments related to some of the topics taught in lectures. At a later stage students are exposed in depth to various multidisciplinary topics researched in the Department. This requires students to study speciality texts that should enable them to become proficient in major aspects of experimental methodology used in the laboratory. In addition, students are expected to write assignments and give oral presentations on specialized areas of research in order to improve the writing and presentation skills expected in scientific communication. To meet this goal, library courses for small groups of students have been organized in collaboration with the Medical Library at the QEII Medical Centre to help students in using library facilities and various databases. In that regard, I would like to thank in particular Ms Sandra Pullman from the Medical Library for making this collaborative effort a valuable experience in establishing the library courses as an integral part of the Pharmacology curriculum.

Helping students to overcome their first insecure steps in laboratory classes; prompting them to recognize meaningful connections between the various concepts and facts showered upon them until it 'clicks' in their minds; encouraging them to communicate the acquired knowledge to others; teaching them to develop love and enthusiasm for a subject; and guiding them on the path towards their professional maturity, competence and independence are permanent goals that I have set for myself as a university teacher. I dare to believe that such goals might have been the ones which have kept the spirit and tradition of 'studia generalia' alive at all times.