Three team and two individual staff projects that propose novel ways to engage students and improve learning have received Flinders University’s annual Teaching and Learning Innovation Grants of between $6000 and $12,000.

Dr Amy Hamilton of the School of Education has designed a project for final-year students of primary teaching to increase their experience of the arts, and  to help them plan for teaching in the arts. The project will see three artists in residence and experienced teachers assist the students to prepare a performance that incorporates visual art, dance, media art and drama.

Dr Lynda Norton, Dr Claire Drummond and Mr Mark Colbec from the School of Medicine are to prepare a course based around ‘mindfulness-based training’ with the aim of reducing and managing student stress. The training initially will be developed for paramedic students, but is intended to be suitable for integration into courses across the University.

Associate Professor Gunther Andersson of the School of Chemical and Physical Sciences is developing a program aimed at turning physics students into more active learners by engaging them in investigating and solving real problems in the laboratory.

Dr Lisa Schmidt from the Centre for University Teaching leads a team comprised of heads and deans of schools in the Faculty of Science and Engineering in a project that aims to ensure mixing of international and domestic students in group exercises across the faculty. Planning and supporting such interaction will help prepare students for the multinational and global workforce.

Sociologists Dr Eduardo de la Fuente and Mr Daniel Chaffee aim to introduce first-year sociology students to research techniques by getting students to perform a 24-hour self-reporting survey that will be used as the basis for a web-based exercise in statistical and qualitative analysis of comparative data.