Congratulations to Dr Cami Sawyer, a senior mathematics tutor in the School of Fundamental Sciences, has been awarded one of 10 tertiary teaching awards announced by Ako Aotearoa, the National Centre for Tertiary Teaching Excellence. Cami, an Associate Member of CeRME, says the award is part recognition “that teaching is important and that the work I do is noticed”. The prize money also provided an opportunity for professional development or funding for projects.
She initiated synchronous weekly E-tutorials to give students more real-time engagement. She uses Adobe Connect, simultaneously running an iPad with a whiteboard app and a personal computer showing student questions and comments. She was also an early adopter of using video to teach in a creative way. Rather than recordings of internal lectures, she uses bespoke teaching sessions, structured to help the learning of distance students. Since 2015, Dr Sawyer has produced 186 videos, which have had more than 58,000 views.