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Professional development opportunities for sessional academics

Below are links to information about professional development support at Monash, and some useful external links.

Developing your teaching career

The University's Staff Development Unit offers a range of courses and workshops that are open to all staff including sessional academics, many of them at no cost.

Your faculty or department/school will inform you about their professional development programs.   

The Faculty of Business and Economics offers a weekly Professional Development Seminar Program on learning and teaching issues, using an interactive format to discuss the application of theory to actual teaching situations. The faculty has extended an invitation to sessional staff from any other faculty to attend the seminars. For further information contact Miriam Sridharan on 990 31165 or
Miriam.Sridharan@BusEco.monash.edu.au.

Evaluating your teaching

You can have the quality of your own teaching assessed through the Monash Questionnaire Series on Teaching (Monquest) or peer evaluation.  Note that these differ from the unit evaluations that take place each semester where the focus is on the quality of teaching in the unit as a whole on dimensions such as assessment and course design, rather than individual teaching staff. See also:

Developing a teaching portfolio

It is recommended that you develop a teaching portfolio recording your observations and reflections on the classroom, particularly if you are undertaking teaching as part of an “apprenticeship†for an academic career. A portfolio can help improve your teaching, as well as providing evidence of teaching experience for future employment. See also:

Being recognised for your contributions

The following faculties offer annual Dean’s awards for teaching excellence :

Sessional academics are eligible for nomination for the Vice-Chancellor's Awards for Teaching Excellence that recognise and reward exemplary teaching by individuals or teams.

The Vice Chancellors Equity and Diversity Awards recognise significant contributions to the enhancement of equity and diversity at Monash University, and are presented annually to encourage and reward individual excellence and to promote and support best practice initiatives and projects.

The Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) offers annual awards for excellence in teaching. The Citations for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning are open to staff who have made significant contributions to student learning in a specific area of responsibility over a sustained periodâ€. See the ALTC Guidelines (pdf 173kb) for details. Note that All ALTC applications (citations, awards, grants, etc) from Monash must be submitted through CALT (Monash only link).