Thursday 12 December 2019 10:31pm
Chemistry's Dr Dave McMorran with Vice-Chancellor Professor Harlene Hayne following an event celebrating his success in this year's Ako Aotearoa National Teaching Excellence Awards. Photo: Sharron Bennett.
Chemistry may be a tough subject but Dr David McMorran’s teaching makes it accessible for his students.
The Senior Teaching Fellow was celebrated at the University on Monday as a winner in the Sustained Excellence in Tertiary Teaching General Category at the recent Ako Aotearoa National Teaching Excellence Awards.
He began his teaching career at Otago in 2003, after he had already gained some valuable teaching experience at the University as a doctoral student.
"The trick is to try to find ways to connect students’ experiences of everyday things to the underlying science being taught."
He now teaches the largest chemistry course in the country, with more than 2,000 first year students enrolled and sometimes up to 500 students in a lecture.
While he admits chemistry can be a hard subject, Dr McMorran says it’s also a creative one and the trick to teaching it is to bring creativity into the teaching.
“The trick is to try to find ways to connect students’ experiences of everyday things to the underlying science being taught.”
Dr McMorran is humbled to receive this award for his teaching.
However, for him, the most rewarding moment is when a student understands what he has taught them.
In 2016, Dr McMorran was named the Division of Sciences Senior Teacher of the Year. His teaching has also being previously recognised with two OUSA teaching awards, and an Otago University Excellence in Teaching Award this year.
Vice-Chancellor Professor Harlene Hayne says Otago staff take great pride in their teaching and the students clearly thrive under their tutelage.
“This high level of student success at Otago doesn’t happen by accident. It happens because of teachers like Dave.
"It is teachers like Dave who make the Otago educational experience so successful."
“Those who excel are teachers who treat teaching as a calling, not as a job; teachers who understand that the best way to change the world is through education; and teachers who relish the opportunity to spend the bulk of their day in the company of bright, articulate, and highly motivated young people.
“It is teachers like Dave who make the Otago educational experience so successful.”
Dr McMorran also sits on numerous committees promoting chemical education.
For his teaching and community engagement, he has been recognised by the New Zealand Institute of Chemistry, being made a Fellow in 2016, and awarded the Denis Hogan Prize for Chemical Education in 2017.
ln 2018 he was invited to join the Executive Board of the New Zealand International Science Festival.
“The founders of the University of Otago were highly committed to education. If they could be here with us now, I think that they would be extremely proud of what they set in motion 150 years ago,” Professor Hayne says.