Ms Fiona McCook

My expertise and interest is in the area of teacher education and professional development, a focus that is underpinned by extensive teaching experience across the tertiary, professional and primary sectors in Australia, New Zealand and Vietnam.

My current appointment in CALT sees me focussing on providing teaching and learning support to academic staff as part of the Graduate Certificate in Higher Education, Foundations program and Sessional Staff Training programs. This support has taken a variety of forms and has included:

• Developing and delivering workshops and seminars often in collaboration with faculty staff
• Conducting peer observations
• Providing oral and written feedback on teaching and classroom management
• Providing one-on-one mentoring
• Conducting small-group teaching
• Designing support material

The assistance I am able to provide is informed by my earlier experience at Monash where I developed and conducted academic skills support programs for undergraduate and postgraduate students, sometimes in collaboration with academic staff, across a range of faculties.  At the international level  I have coordinated the design and delivery of academic preparation programs for Australian Development Scholarship students in Vietnam, who have gone on to take up post graduate studies in Australia.

My international experience extends also to teacher education. Recently I was part of a Victoria University team delivering a degree program to Vietnamese tertiary and secondary teachers.  In addition to this project and prior to my employment at Monash University in 2005, I developed, conducted and evaluated professional development programs in Vietnam to assist teachers of English in promoting active learning in their classrooms. Among my contributions were:

• the development and delivery of an in-service teacher education program
• the design and delivery of  professional development seminars for University teaching staff
• the establishment of a self-access learning centre

Within the professional sector, my involvement in education has been with the Australia and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists where I developed and facilitated a series of workshops for clinical teachers throughout both countries. The focus of the sessions was to assist clinical teachers in developing both the skills and knowledge to ensure that their trainees benefited from clinical experiences.

I am currently enrolled in a PhD (Education) where my area of interest is exploring how conceptions of teaching in higher education become practice. My Masters thesis investigated the effect of in-service teacher education programs on the classroom practice of Vietnamese teachers.