UWI/Guardian Life 'Premium' Teaching Awards 2006

Feature Speaker and Judge: Prof. Stuart Bunt

Topic: Evidence of Teaching Effectives at The UWI, St. Augustine

Professor Stuart Bunt, MA, DPhil (Oxon), Professiorial Fellow, Teaching and Learning, University of Western Austrailia (UWA), is a trained Zoologist and was the photographer for a number of expeditions to the Andes, the Seychelles and the far-flung corners of Europe.  Settling down to research in the U.S.A, Prof. Bunt started unique work on the regeneration of the spinal cord, work that continues to this day.  Never one to settle long, or resist a good gadget, Prof. Bunt returned to Scotland to pioneer early studies in the use of CAD software for anatomical simulations. Always a polymath, Prof. Bunt's research has covered areas from the distribution of moths at height altitude, to vision in fish and human cadavers, to art in science, and the use of computer wafers as a substrate for nerve cell growth, to fulfill his ultimate aim of melding his love of zoology with computers.

He is Co-founder with Prof. Miranda Grounds, of the Image Acquisition and Analysis Facility, a biomedical imaging centre and web design unit supporting both research and teaching at the UWA and the state, also of SymbioticA, the first art and biology lab situated in a science department.  Secretary of the UWA branch of the NTEU, and an elected Senator, he has been a participant on two successive CUTSD grants for teaching and hosted both the state HERDSA website and the national site for communication skills in teaching - "Skill City".  In 2002 he founded the UWA spin-off company "Paradigm Diagnostics" financed by venture capital, specialising in the production of biomedical software.

Judges

Chief Judge, Dr. Dale Roy, Executive Director, Centre for Leadership in Learning (CLL), McMaster University, has been associated with this centre since 1979, first as an educational consultant and later as Director.  The centre includes services in course construction, peer consulting, and learning technology.  Resources for teaching are provided at the centre along with workshops, seminars and symposia.  He teaches a credit course in university teaching for graduate students, and mini-courses on teaching and learning topics and also provides a comprehensive program for new faculty, which includes course design, course refinement, and course observation. Dale has several publications that deal with the issues of teaching and learning in a university setting.  He currently provides guidance to those teachers seeking to develop their dossiers for tenure or promotion.

Ms. Helen Gale, Associate Dean of Learning and Teaching, Centre of Excellence in Learning and Teaching, University of Wolverhampton, is responsible for the development of the staff learning community, in terms of their intellectual understanding of learning and teaching issues and expertise in the delivery and dissemination of effective and efficient learning and teaching practice.  In so doing she is concerned with such issues as peer observation and the PG Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education.  Her responsiblity also extends to the monitoring and evaluation of Learning and Teaching projects (approximately 30 per year), the Assessment Projects (10), and the Embedding Projects (10).  She is particularly interested in models of change in staff and educational development and in innovatory assessment.  Over the last three years she has authored and/or co-authored the following publications:

• "Changing Practice through Innovation and Research: Learning and Teaching Projects"
• "Change and Development through Innovation and Research: Learning and Teaching Projects"
• "Supporting Students through Innovation and Research: Learning and Teaching Projects"

Ms. Gale is also a member of the Editorial Committee of Educational Developments, the magazine of the Staff and Educational Devleopment Association (SEDA).