Over 90% of University staff who went to an Open Door last semester found the experience helpful, and an overwhelming 95% would recommend it to their colleagues. Week 4 // Open Door is a chance for any University staff member to go and sit in on over 60 lectures, tutorials, seminars, and workshops that teachers from across the University have opened for observation. As some observers pointed out:
It is really inspiring to see others teach.
Especially liked experiencing learning from a student’s point of view, and also seeing what students got up to during the lecture.
View the Open Doors and sign up
What else stood out for colleagues who sat in and observed classes last semester? The most positive feedback was about being inspired to approach teaching differently, and to reflect on how we teach. Justine Dougherty from the Faculty of Health Sciences said:
So many options available, such a fantastic learning opportunity – to reflect on my own teaching methods and see how others run their sessions. I have attended 2 sessions now and am surprisingly inspired to amend my own teaching strategies.
Alisha Portolese from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences sat with a colleague and opened up discussion on what they saw:
It was a great experience. I wish there were more classes in my field that I could have sat it on. It was ideal that a colleague I knew was also coincidentally sitting in with me. We reflected on the experience together, which certainly made the entire event more pleasurable and valuable.
Josephine Gwynn and Helen Parker also pointed out the
A very good learning experience and great to see colleagues at work – rarely do this and we all benefit in doing so.
I think that seeing other approaches sparks new ideas for me and prevents my teaching from becoming ‘same old, same old’.
To get inspired yourself, come along to as many Week 4 // Open Doors as you can. View the calendar of classes and sign up:
View the Open Doors and sign up
More than just physical doors
With the introduction of Canvas as the University’s new learning management system, academics and designers from around the University have been busy building Canvas unit sites for semester 2. Some of them have agreed to fling open the virtual doors to their Canvas sites. We’re collecting a set of these Canvas sites for you to browse and explore:
Tour the Open Sites
