Flinders University has been successful in attracting national grants to support the investigation and development of innovations in object-based learning at the Flinders Art Museum and to enhance second language education.
Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) Professor Andrew Parkin congratulated the recipients, saying Flinders was one of just three Australian universities to attract multiple funding in the latest Australian Government Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) grant allocations.
“Strategic funding, including the OLT’s Innovation and Development and Seed Grant program, is vital in promoting high-quality projects enhancing our teaching and learning capacity here at Flinders,” Professor Parkin says.
“We’re pleased to accept this opportunity to reinvigorate the educational utilisation of the valuable Flinders University Art Museum collections and to focus on expanding our rich second language offering via these latest grants.”
Today’s seed grants were made to Flinders Art Museum and City Gallery director Fiona Salmon and Italian language lecturer Dr Antonella Strambi and Dr Ann Luzeckyj from the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching.
Each project will received $40,000 in seed funding for their respective programs entitled:
- The power of things: enhancing employability in higher education through object-based learning – to promote the use of Flinders University’s art collections in teaching, learning and research across multiple disciplines, blending academic and practical learning experiences to improve graduate employment opportunities (Ms Salmon in collaboration with the University of Melbourne and TAFE SA).
- Helping first-year students flourish through languages: Integrating positive psychology, transition pedagogy and CLIL principles – using techniques including Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), the project seeks to showcase the personal benefits – from social to emotional and psychological wellbeing – of learning a second language. (Dr Strambi and Dr Luzeckyj in collaboration with the University of Sydney).
Ms Salman says she is using the latest funding, including a Flinders Learning and Teaching Innovation grant, to bring Art Museum collections “front and centre” of campus learning.
“Our art works, including an extensive Indigenous collection, were established for teaching and learning 50 years ago as part of the University’s visual art discipline,” Ms Salmon says.
“With the University’s 50th anniversary in 2016, it is timely that we can stimulate the return of the collections to the mainstream of academic life and become a catalyst for new interactions within and between disciplines.”
Along with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander collection, Flinders University Art Museum has extensive holdings of Australian political prints, European prints from the 15th to 20th century, post-object works and other unique items.