Reward and recognition programs, and staff benefits
At Excelsia, we have much to recognise and celebrate as a staff community. We practise gratitude and have many channels to express thankfulness to one another. We also come together formally to celebrate our staff through our values based Share the Light Award and performance based Excellence in Teaching Award.
Share the Light Award
- Aims to recognise and reward staff living the values of the College;
- • Christ-likeness
- • Innovation and Creativity
- • Scholarship
- • Service to the Community
- • Lifelong learning
- Bring to life the values of the College.
- Provide a platform to showcase staff achievements.
Excellence in Teaching Award:
- The purpose of the College Excellence in Teaching Award is to recognise the contribution made by academic staff across the college in teaching excellence.
- Nominations can be made by individuals, students, or academic peers.
Monthly Community Meetings & Community Newsletters
- • We come together as a staff community to share updates and hear from our CEO.
- • Our Community Newsletter celebrates the learnings and achievements of our People.
- The Make My Day Program serves as an avenue for the College to gift our staff with small surprises and encouragements that aim to “make their day”.
- The program works to recognise and reward our staff collectively, for their efforts, small and large, seen and unseen, that make our community what it is.
- We enjoyed blessing our staff with a surprise coffee and cookie earlier this year! (See image below)
Excelsia
EXCELLENCE IN
Year 2022
Dr Christine Carroll
Music Program Director, Lecturer, Research Supervisor
School of Creative and Performing Arts
Christine started her career in music education in 1994 as a secondary school music teacher, moving into tertiary teaching in 1999. She has been a teacher educator at both the University of Sydney Conservatorium of Music and the Australian Catholic University before beginning work at Excelsia College in 2019. She teaches units in Contemporary and Early Music History, Small Ensemble Studies (Vocal and Chamber), Harmony and Formation III as well as Masters units in Music Pedagogy, Research Methods and Research Project.
Her personal philosophy of teaching has embraced scholarship, reflection, student centred pedagogy, and personal and spiritual formation as she seeks to develop and realise the potential of her students around share goals and mutual ownership of learning outcomes. She employs teaching strategies which start by acknowledging the diversity of students’ prior learning in music, employing social constructivist pedagogies to build formal knowledge upon their informally acquired skills. To this end, activities in performance, improvisation, arranging, analysis and reflection are utilised as a basis for the introduction of unfamiliar abstract concepts requiring music reading or literacy.
She believes that effective assessment requires collaboration, with formative feedback provided throughout learning and assessment schemes. This provides her students with the opportunity to build self-efficacy as learners before more challenging individual ‘theory’ tasks are undertaken.
Scholarship is employed in all areas of her teaching practice with the results used to enrich student learning. Her current research undertaken with Dr Latukefu seeks to explore musicians career trajectories in relation to knowledge, skill and identity formation, with the findings disseminated internationally, impacting pedagogy and curriculum development in an ongoing fashion at Excelsia College.
Winner 2021
Ireni Farag
Counselling Lecturer
Excellence in Teaching Award overall winner for 2021 was Ireni Farag for designing teaching underpinned by socio-cultural research and a desire to stimulate curiosity in students that encourages life-long learning and enhances the student learning experience at Excelsia College.
Her application provided numerous examples of versatile teaching methods that enhanced students‘ learning experience at Excelsia college. Carefully designed, scaffolded assessments ensure students are introduced carefully to complex theories and models. Case studies that include Christian organizations display a level of design in which students gain intimate knowledge of potential organizations where they can work in the future. Adaption of a client-centred counselling approach to teaching is evidenced by enthusiastic and inspired student feedback.
Winner in year 2020
Fiona Gentle
Associate Lecturer CAPA, Academic Support Advisor
Fiona was nominated for being a dedicated and caring teacher. Her experience in Drama and as a portfolio career artist and teacher has made her particularly good at engaging students to think creatively about their work. In 2020 due to Covid-19 lockdown, Fiona directed the college musical Songs for a New World, changing it to an online format. Students engaged with Fiona in the problem-solving exercise, working independently and innovatively to make the musical happen despite isolation. Fiona’s greatest strength is the respect and support she provides to every individual student.
