Central Queensland University - Bundaberg - Bachelor of Learning Management (Primary)

CQUniversity - Graduate Diploma of Learning Management (Executive Leadership)

CQUniversity - Masters of Learning Management (Executive Leadership)

University of Tasmania - Doctor of Philosophy (candidate)

2015 - Vice Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Contributions to Learning and Teaching - Tier Two Award. This award acknowledges Trixie James for excellence in motivating and inspiring Enabling students to realise their potential and gain a passion and thirst for knowledge through innovative teaching practices.

2014 - Vice-Chancellors Award for Good Practice in Learning and Teaching - Tier One award. This award recognises quality practices for facilitating student participation and success.
2014 - Opal Award for Internal Service (Health and Wellbeing Group)
2013 - Student Voice Commendation for Distance Educator of the Year

Board Director and Secretary of the Bundaberg Christian College Board of Directors

Committee member of the National Association of Enabling Educators of Australia

The aims of NAEEA Inc. are:

(a) To advocate, encourage, promote and widen access and successful participation in groups who are under-represented in tertiary education.

(b) To undertake activities which establish a profile for Enabling Education and promote the benefits it provides to individuals, universities and society.

(c) To organise and hold a bi-annual conference.

(d) To hold forums fostering an exchange of ideas and support for collaboration and co-operation between individuals, groups and organisations engaged in Enabling Education.

Social Innovation

Led a team to develop the Be Positive initiative which is a 12 week Positive Psychology program designed to assist students to re-frame the way they think about their studies.

The ‘Be Positive’ initiative is a 12-week Positive Psychology educational wellbeing program that has been developed by educators within the School of Access Education, CQUniversity, to assist with building student optimism. Investigation into the benefits of psychological wellness and personal well-being is often an overlooked construct in research, especially in relation to student success at university. This is evident with research output on depression and anxiety extraneously exceeding the research output on subjective well-being (James & Walters, 2020). However, evident in literature is that Positive Psychology has the potential to increase psychological well-being and therefore might be the missing link to improved student engagement and retention. In light of this, since Positive Psychology has the potential to develop a person’s well-being, the ‘Be Positive’ initiative was developed explicitly for building students’ confidence and encouraging a more optimistic mindset towards their study. Ackerman (2021) shares that initiatives based on positive psychology can have an enormous benefit as “change in one’s perspective can lead to astounding shifts in wellbeing and quality of life”.

This program has been piloted in the STEPS enabling program, evaluated, and the findings written into a journal publication. It is being expanded and developed into a micro-credential so it is more accessible to the community.  Further development will be taking place so it can be trialled in a high school setting.

Scholarship into Learning and Teaching

The creation of a teaching framework called theHigher Expectation Framework has come about through my vision to ensure that instructional design for post secondary education engages an adult audience and is a fun and engaging experience that enables them to gain confidence and develop self-efficacy. The Higher Expectation Framework is a structured approach to thinking, planning and actioning, and is an innovative and engaging model that makes the class environment a safe place where students feel empowered to step out of their comfort zone and become more engaged with the content.

The four stages include

• Review (and establish the foundations of concepts)
• Connect (concepts to prior knowledge)
• Extend (and construct deeper knowledge through peer interaction)
• Apply (the knowledge to life situation)

Following the development and dissemination of the HEF, I recognised an opportunity to further develop this framework to assist students to reflect critically on what they were learning. Critical thinking (CT) and critical reflection (CR) are skills that need to be developed and practiced. For enabling students, this can be daunting and difficult to learn as they often lack the ability to reason and critically interact with the presented knowledge. Drawing on scholarly literature in the field of CR and CT, there is consensus that many adults exhibit deficient reasoning but, in theory, can be taught to think critically; however, this skill is unlikely to develop in the absence of explicit instruction (Case, 2005). This matched my experience as a STEPS educator, therefore, based on my scholarship experience, I prioritised developing an evidence-based approach that provided explicit instruction. Enabling students enter as surface level learners, inexperienced in questioning what they are learning. I could see how students would benefit from having explicit instruction to guide them in the process of reflection. There was a synergy with the RCEA approach and an ability to broaden this initiative into a different context. Therefore, I invited two colleagues to collaborate, and we devised a critical reflection journal (CRJ) using the four steps of RCEA to teach students to critically reflect on content being taught in their study. Our team identified the need for this approach to be self-explanatory with semi-guided instruction.

The CRJ uses the four-step RCEA approach, that encourages students to pose questions around each criterion in order to reflect on the content they are learning. The criteria includes: 1). Review and reflect on the content, 2). Connect what they have learnt to past experiences, 3). Extend their knowledge through research and finally, 4). Apply this new knowledge to authentic experiences. This journal is presented in a visually stimulating hardcopy booklet or as a downloadable resource from www.higherexpectationframework.com .

NAEEA committee member

Director on the Board of the Bundaberg Christian College