Thursday 17 October 2019 12:33pm
Dr Gwynaeth McIntyre (left) receives the 2019 Division of Humanities Teaching Excellence Award from Associate Professor Simone Marshall (Associate Dean Academic)
The third annual Division of Humanities Teaching and Learning Symposium, held at the Dunedin campus on 15 October, offered staff a full day of reflection and collaboration on ways to enhance teaching practices.
Associate Professor Simone Marshall (Associate Dean Academic), says the “Pride in the Humanities” event explored ways to enhance communication, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity for the Division’s teaching staff.
“Aside from creating an opportunity to share ideas and attend workshops on a range of issues relevant to our lecturers’ professional development, the symposium also celebrated how hard our teaching staff work, and how the varied and dynamic ways we teach provide students with great learning experiences,” she says.
The symposium concluded with the presentation of the Division’s teaching excellence award to Classics programme Senior Lecturer Dr Gwynaeth McIntyre. While delighted to receive the award and recognition for her teaching, Dr McIntyre noted “teaching is not a solitary affair.”
“I have been blessed to be a part of an amazing community and have learned from and been supported by some of the most inspiring teachers. I am also lucky to interact daily with some incredible students whose questions and intellectual curiosity have encouraged me to reflect on how I teach and introduced me to new avenues of inquiry.”
In addition to teaching a first-year Greek mythology paper, Latin papers and a 300/400-level paper From Augustus to Nero: Scandal and Intrigue in Imperial Rome, Dr McIntyre is also working on the digitisation of the Otago Museum's coin collection. The project also aims to create an online catalogue of the coins through the Otago Museum website.
Inaugural award co-recipient Dr SungYong Lee (National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies) receives a teaching award from Division of Humanities Pro-Vice-Chancellor Professor Tony Ballantyne in 2018.
Members of the public can view the coin exhibitions built by students in the 300-level paper here.
Dr McIntyre also co-ordinates a Classics Quiz night for local intermediate and secondary school pupils, which is run annually in conjunction with the Classics Association of Otago and this year attracted more than 100 pupils from 8 Dunedin schools.
Dr McIntyre was presented with a taonga made by local artist Blondie Ngamoki.
The teaching awards were added to the symposium itinerary last year, and inaugural recipients were Senior Lecturer Dr SungYong Lee (National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies) and Associate Professor Dr Ben Schonthal (Religion).