2025 Distinguished Teaching Award winner on never stopping learning

Were you surprised? Do you know who nominated you?

“I was indeed genuinely surprised! I found out that several students and colleagues had submitted me for the award. This is the kind of award that a teacher never expects or actively works toward in their careers. Ideally, teaching is a calling enacted by genuinely passionate people that want to share their knowledge and grow the potential of their students. To me, that's reward enough, but to have been told that I won the award has given me the most incredible sense of fulfilment for my 16 years of teaching as a career.”

What are your tricks? What do you do that is special in terms of teaching?

“Sometimes it feels like we have to be magicians in how we adapt and change our methods as students and pedagogic techniques and needs change with each new generation. I have a unique position of teaching much of my content online, meaning that a significant cohort of my class are external to the programme, based all over the world. Remote teaching can often feel extremely isolating and alienating, so I apply a highly humanistic style of teaching that involves 'practice what you teach'. I actively work on helping students hone their work, but offering a critical mass of self-development through questioning and collaboration. It's a high energy, high payoff teaching style that I adore, even if it can get a little exhausting at times.”

What do you think is most important as a teacher when it comes to teaching students?

“Equality. A first year student is as important as a doctoral student to me. Many pedagogic methods focus on the trickle down style of teaching, with the highest level of study having the highest needs. This is effective for a specific cadre of student, but isolates many others. Instead, by employing constructivist teaching, with the knowledge of what the highest level of study requires pedagogically, whilst seeing what the needs of the individual are, builds cohesion and community of learning.”

Do you also contribute to your colleagues' professional development?

“I believe that I do. I serve on the Board of the Department of Game Design, whose core responsibility is maintaining high quality in curricular development, whilst actively working with colleagues to reframe and develop existing materials to adapt to new learning needs or requirements as students and, notably, technology changes. We are in a uniquely positions STEAM field (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) as game design almost seamlessly blends the established fields of STEM whilst actively embedding the arts into the work produced from both a practical stance as well as research outputs.”

Do you have any specific tips/advice/thoughts on teaching?

“To be a good pedagogue means to never stop learning. We cannot teach what we do not know, and we cannot assume to know everything in our field, even if we've spent decades working within it. Learning methods change as rapidly as people, and thus so should the people teaching.”

What will you do with the prize money?

“I'd like to invest in a really good coffee machine for the office. It's no secret that teachers are fuelled by coffee, so the better the quality, the better the teaching. Levity aside, I am working on developing a book for early career academics themed around transculturalism, and having additional funds is greatly welcomed.”