I am a teacher and researcher within the Academic Learning Centre (ALC). As part of a broader ALC team, I was awarded a Vice-Chancellor's Award for Outstanding Practice in Learning and Teaching (Tier 2) in 2023. 

I have been a teacher for 23 years and have 13 years of teaching experience in universities. In program design and service delivery, I am informed by English as a Second Language (ESL) and Specifically Designed Academic Instruction in English (SDAIE) principles and instructional strategies within a constructivist approach. Both pedagogies enable students to access information in a student-centred and engaging way; ESL methodology facilitates understanding and acquisition of language, and SDAIE helps students understand and acquire content knowledge. I am passionate about clearly and enthusiastically delivering content through the incorporation, monitoring and feedback on student-centred tasks. These tasks need to align to clearly articulated outcomes and context and must be varied, not only to sustain interest and help realise objectives but to appeal to different learning styles and teaching contexts. As a result, I underpin all program development by meticulously planning how students can best engage with concepts as I believe that understanding can only be engendered through active learning.

I am also committed to using social innovation to support our students and the wider community. In 2018, I won a CQU OPAL award for the LACE program which delivered free English language lessons to asylum seekers and refugees in Sydney. I am currently involved in a social innovation initiative that uses positive psychology principles to reframe students' thinking processes to improve engagement, persistence and psychological well-being in a learning environment.

Finally, I acknowledge my needs as a learner and am committed to developing my teaching practice through reflection and the exploration and application of research relating to all aspects of my role as an associate lecturer. Using mixed methods design, I have been the lead author on several journal articles which aim to improve students' assessment performance through Automated Feedback Technology, an embedded academic literacy approach, and the application of positive psychology principles.