Deakin's teaching excellence recognised at national awards

The awards celebrate the university teachers who have shown excellence in teaching, developed outstanding presentation skills, and made a significant contribution to enhancing the quality of learning and teaching in higher education. 

Presented by the Minister for Education and Training, Simon Birmingham, the awards cover disciplines including science, the arts, Indigenous studies, psychology, business, health and journalism. 

Dr Tony Joel, Senior Lecturer in History and Course Director of the Bachelor of Arts, was honoured in the Humanities and the Arts category while Dr Jaclyn Broadbent, a Senior Lecturer in Psychology in the Faculty of Health, was honoured in the Social and Behavioural Sciences category. 

Dr Joel said the subject he teaches, the Holocaust, is a very important but potentially problematic one to share with university students. 

“My teaching team and I create a high support/high challenge learning environment that we share with our students,” Dr Joel said.

“When learning about the Holocaust, it can be easy to fixate on the enormity of it – the mass numbers involved, especially concerning the victims. 

“Each trimester, my students and I visit the Jewish Holocaust Centre. It’s here that they meet survivors, hear their harrowing tales, see the serial numbers tattooed on their arms, and view the historical artefacts in the JHC’s museum. It’s at that point they begin to understand that each of the six million victims was an individual. 

“I encourage students to bring loved ones or friends along, too, and this gives them an opportunity to share the sobering experience of touring the museum and to reinforce what they’ve learnt by explaining the significance of the artefacts to friends and family.
 
“For the students, it’s a chance to learn things I just can’t teach in a lecture theatre. For the survivors and volunteers at the Jewish Holocaust Centre, it’s a chance to turn the next generation into historical custodians.”

For Dr Broadbent, the challenge in teaching one of Deakin’s most popular subjects, Health Behaviour, is making sure that the 2,100 students each year feel they are more than just a number.

“My team and I provide personalised learning with lots of meaningful feedback for each student,” Dr Broadbent said.

“We do this in a number of ways including personalised emails and texts based on a student’s individual behaviour or performance – for example, we would send a text to check in on a student who’s missed a couple of classes or text a student to congratulate them on a high mark.

“We also provide feedback on assignments as audio files. During an 11-week trimester, we created and sent over 4,500 audio files!

“Best of all, we’ve been able to attend a range of conferences and events to share our ideas with colleagues from all over the world.”

Deputy Vice-Chancellor Education Professor Beverley Oliver congratulated Dr Joel and Dr Broadbent on their awards.

“Deakin prides itself on producing innovative and future-focussed graduates and it’s wonderful teachers like Dr Joel and Dr Broadbent that make this possible,” Professor Oliver said.

“The University is very proud to have such exceptional teachers guiding our students’ learning.”