Academic staff at the Solomon Islands National University (SINU) are currently participating in a professional development programme to improve their teaching and assessment practices.
The university’s Vice-Chancellor, Dr Glynn Galo, has formed a partnership with Volunteer Service Abroad in New Zealand who have contracted Dr Elly Govers to develop and facilitate the professional development programme.
A statement from the University said, Dr Elly is a highly experienced teacher and curriculum development specialist who has worked across many levels and many subject areas in higher education, in New Zealand and the Netherlands.
The professional development programme is an important component in realising SINU’s vision to become an outstanding institution for quality teaching, learning, skills training and research in the Solomon Islands and the region.
To realise the vision, SINU is guided by five principles: Excellence and Quality; Innovativeness; Relevance; Accessibility; and Collegiality. This professional development is the first step in enhancing the capacity of academic staff to integrate these principles into their teaching and assessment practices.
The professional development programme consists of a range of workshops in which staff learn to apply new teaching and assessment methods. Additionally, there are small group meetings in which each staff member presents how they will teach a class using the new methods.
The presentations to date have shown some exciting innovative methods that academic staff will start to use to better engage their students in learning.
So far, more than 80 academic staff have participated in the workshops and small group meetings. These include staff from all of the five Schools: Education and Humanities, Nursing and Allied Health, Technology and Maritime Studies, Natural Resources and Applied Sciences, and Business and Management.
The programme will end next Friday 21 August.