I have been teaching at Australian universities since 2009. Starting off as a tutor at Griffith University in Brisbane, I have taught into twenty different courses across four universities. I have also convened thirteen different under-graduate and post-graduate courses. This includes very large introductory courses (300+ students), small post-grad courses (10-15 students), online only courses, and mixed mode courses with online and offline components. I have consistently received excellent evaluations for my teaching. My experience convening includes delivering:
Contemporary Australian Politics: Race, Nation, Class and Gender
Parties, Elections and Campaigns
Introduction to Politics and Policy
Media and Politics
Introduction to Australian Politics
Rhetoric, Spin and the Media
Research Methods
Governance, Power and Public Policy
In 2021, I am convening a new course, 'Democratic Politics: From Parties to Protest'. The course guide and content can be found here
In designing this course, one of my aims was to move beyond what I see as the stale format of lectures, seminars and readings employed in most university courses. One of my approaches to inject more energy and life into the course is to record short videos with key scholars who work on questions related to the weekly topic. Often these scholars have authored key readings and the videos are designed to be a casual but informative way for students to understand key concepts, debates or developments.
One example of this is for the week on populism and the radical right. I enlisted the services of my friends and collaborators Professor Duncan McDonnell from Griffith University and Dr Ben Moffitt from ACU to discuss the different approaches to understanding populism as a concept, as well as range of questions about the history of populism and the challenges of classifying populists. The video below is indicative of those used throughout the course and I've found they are a great way to get beyond the dry and often dreary academic debates we inflict on students.
