Excellence in teaching

Beverley McNamara is a lecturer in the Department of Anthropology. She received the Excellence in Teaching Unit Award in 2000. This award represents a joint effort by the Guild and the University to recognise and reward exemplary teaching.

I started my teaching career over twenty-five years ago as a teacher of primary school children. At that time it was quite innovative to propose that the student should be self-directed. In order to reach a thorough level of understanding, we were told, students should learn to construct questions and find out the answers for themselves. It is now well acknowledged, at all levels of education, that self-direction holds the key to deeper learning. The pressing question then, is how do we foster self-direction and motivation in the student? Through my ongoing professional education as a teacher I am aware of many creative strategies and techniques. However, good teaching cannot be reduced to a technique. Good teachers motivate, inspire and guide and they do this through consciously developing and displaying personal qualities of curiosity, empathy and integrity. As personal qualities inform both their teaching performance and their informal interactions with students, teachers must make their ethical frameworks transparent. I believe openness, accountability, accessibility and reflexivity underpin the ethics of teaching.

Student learning occurs at different levels and through different methods. In developing my courses I structure activities that allow students to formulate and answer questions through a number of different means. One of the most exciting recent challenges in teaching is presented in the form of flexible learning, where both teachers and students can use various media to enhance their teaching and learning. Providing lecture and course materials through the internet has increased the accessibility of university learning in important ways. Not only do students have diverse cognitive styles and learning preferences, they may be restricted in attending conventional lecture and tutorial timeslots due to work and family commitments, cultural beliefs and behaviours and disabilities. My students are excited and motivated by a combination of teaching and learning methods that range from the conventional lecture, which is taped, digitised and presented on the web through the Multi Media Centre’s iLecture format, to the creation of their own webpages designed to function as community resources. Nevertheless, while the technology is stimulating in itself, I believe it only facilitates the process of learning. Technological ‘gismos’ cannot mask a lack of substantive course content. I believe my course content should be built upon the empirical research and academic debate that was generated in universities long before the advent of the computer.

The moves towards flexible modes of delivery in teaching and learning creates many challenges, none more so than in the provision of adequate services to ensure that students and staff have equitable access to equipment and venues. I appreciate the support I have received in proposing and developing new strategies in learning, particularly in the context of flexible modes of delivery. These methods ensure I am never bored – I find I am constantly learning with and from the students.