Visiting teaching fellows

As I reflect on my year as a Physics Teaching Fellow at UNSW in 2025, I wish to express my deep gratitude for an experience that has proven genuinely transformative for my professional development. Entering the role with extensive prior experience in high-school physics teaching, I have been afforded a remarkable breadth and depth of university-level teaching responsibilities that will undoubtedly enrich my future practice in school education.

I am particularly thankful for the diverse portfolio of roles I was privileged to undertake this year, which allowed me to engage with students and staff across multiple platforms and levels from convening the online first-year physics unit, leading the problem-solving workshops, lecturing in a first-year course, demonstrating in laboratory sessions, and coordinating outreach programs for visiting high-school students.

Each responsibility presented unique challenges and rewards, offering direct insight into the exceptional passion, curiosity, and intellectual rigour of UNSW students across both face-to-face and online cohorts.

Above all, this fellowship has deepened my appreciation for the outstanding standards of teaching and collegiality that characterise the School of Physics. The generous mentorship and collaboration I received—particularly from members of the First-Year Physics teaching team—created an exceptionally supportive environment in which I could innovate, reflect, and refine my practice. The willingness of academic and professional staff to share expertise, resources, constructive feedback, and encouragement has been instrumental in my growth as an educator.

I depart UNSW equipped with new teaching methodologies and analytical strategies for lesson design, real-time student feedback loops, and advanced assessment construction. These experiences have not just been an upskill; they have provided me with a robust, evidence-based toolkit that I am excited to apply directly to my teaching practice in schools, ensuring my students are better prepared for their post-school physics journey.

To the entire School of Physics, and especially to the First-Year Physics team, I extend my sincere thanks for your generosity of time, expertise, and spirit throughout this rewarding year. You have made 2025 a truly memorable and career-defining chapter for me.

I look forward to maintaining strong connections with the School of Physics at UNSW in the years ahead.

I had the pleasure of spending 2025 working in the UNSW School of Physics as a Teaching Fellow, in the First Year Team.

Going from being the only physics teacher in my school while employed at the NSW DET to working amongst world class academics and researchers every day, was an enormously refreshing change for me. I had the opportunity to bounce ideas off others and to contribute to discussions about physics and physics education on a daily basis. I was invited to join the First Year Team at a conference at the start of the year, and then in Term 3 to attend the School of Physics retreat, which I found to be a lot of fun, but also very much eye-opening and informative. I have learned a great deal from the community here and am grateful to have made a number of like-minded friends in the process.

The Teaching Fellowship presented me with many opportunities to focus on my craft as a physics educator, with a focus on quality. I was given the space and licence to be creative and to be myself. On a number of occasions, even while lecturing, students noticed my efforts in the small details, and those moments have stuck with me. My colleagues in the First Year Team, with whom I have worked closely, have been fantastic and supportive; having made it a priority to find interesting and challenging activities for me to indulge in. Working with them has been one of the highlights of my experience in this role, and my career.

Through applying my knowledge and skills towards being a lecturer; tutor; laboratory demonstrator; course convenor; outreach educator; and educational data analyst, I have been able to reflect upon my practice in the high school setting too, and can identify in myself new ways to improve, which I was previously unaware of. My knowledge of tertiary physics and its links with higher mathematics has been refreshed, which has deepened my desire to promote more cross-disciplinary interaction between teachers of science and mathematics.

I am more excited than ever to be a physics teacher, and will be actively looking for ways to enrich the learning experiences of my students at school.

To the UNSW School of Physics, I say:

Thank you for having me!

To say 2020 has been a year of change is an understatement. After several years of teaching physics in schools, taking up something different like the Visiting Teaching Fellowship was always going to be a challenge. The disruption wrought by the pandemic has issued a whole new level of challenges. It has been such an inspiring experience to support teaching and learning in the School of Physics with such dedicated staff.

There have been so many opportunities to participate in the university community. Aside from teaching and learning within the School of Physics, the chance to work in projects across the Faculty of Science has been gratifying, as has been the appreciation of my expertise as a practising teacher.

Personally, it has been a valuable opportunity to refresh and develop my own understanding of physics and physics teaching ­– whether it has been through participating in the School of Physics’ physics education research group PERfECT, to developing physics teaching materials and professional learning courses, to revisiting my own learning from my time long ago as a physics undergraduate.

My time as Visiting Teaching Fellow will not be one that I will soon forget.

I've really enjoyed the chance to work with higher-level physics teaching the first year labs, tutorials and lecturing. It has allowed me to experience, first-hand, what happens at the next level. That, however, has only been a part of my role here. Working in a team to form links between the University and schools to make authentic science research accessible to students from all walks of life, has been the focus of a personal project I have been given the opportunity to develop. Bringing this project into fruition has meant that I have worked to coordinate the efforts of academics from nearly all the schools of science, the NSW Department of Education, NESA, politicians and community groups to make science accessible for all high school students and this has possibly been the most rewarding aspect of my job.

I’ve made friends and professional acquaintances and developed a deep knowledge of how schools and the University are able to work together to increase the learning outcomes for our students.

After many years of classroom teaching, it has been a fabulous opportunity to step sideways into the university environment. I have been able to reconnect with the most up-to-date physics research, learn from world class researchers and see how real-world physics research is done. It has also been fantastic to teach first year students and to gain a better understanding of what my future Year 12 students will go through when they come to university. In addition, I have been able to assist other teachers by developing freely available resources, developing professional development courses and managing projects to connect high-school students with the university.

Overall, I have greatly enjoyed my time at UNSW, I feel like I'm making an important contribution and my knowledge of physics has been extended greatly. I am very much looking forward to bringing the benefits of my experience back to the classroom.

When I found out that a visiting teaching fellowship was being offered in Physics I was both scared and tempted. Luckily, the temptation won out because this has been a fantastic opportunity to reconnect with university level physics and embrace academia for a year, collaborating with academics to develop teaching materials as well as applying teaching strategies in running tutorials and laboratories for first year courses. The things I have learned here and the links I have made with UNSW will enable me to help students master the new syllabus and transition confidently to university.

This year has been an exceptional professional development opportunity as I have had to revisit university level physics as well as master the skills necessary to develop online courses. I am currently preparing for a short stint of lecturing in second semester, and I am determined to make the most of this wonderful experience.