NEWS
Sessional teaching support draws praise
RMIT University has won two Good Practice Awards at a national summit on leadership and standards for sessional teaching.
The Good Practice Awards at the Benchmarking Leadership and Advancement of Standards for Sessional Teaching (BLASST) National Summit acknowledge initiatives that support and enhance quality teaching among sessional staff in higher education.
Owen Shemansky, Manager Planning and Resources, School of Economics, Finance and Marketing, and Kellyann Geurts, Senior Advisor Learning and Teaching, College of Design and Social Context were presented with the finalists awards by Dr Vanessa Fredericks, Project Manager of BLASST.
“This award acknowledges the work we have undertaken to ensure that sessional staff are provided with timely access to email, blackboard, and employee self-service as soon as they join our organisation,” Shemansky said.
Fellow winner Geurts said the Connecting Sessional Staff program provided timely, professional development for sessional staff responding to asking sessional staff what they want.
“We started with a whole-of-College symposia and supplemented by school-based workshops and online resources designed to suit individual needs.”
Both RMIT projects drew enthusiastic support from the audience composed of sessional teachers from around the country.
In acknowledging the RMIT awards, 2014 Office of Learning and Teaching National Fellow Dr Marina Harvey said asking sessional staff what they want and providing access to online systems within 24 hours were key steps in designing professional development and support, which were too often overlooked.
The summit, held at Macquarie University, provided an opportunity for two representatives from every Australian university to foster collegial networking and support scholarly distribution of research and innovation.