Teaching context and philosophy

Teaching context and philosophy

Throughout university, I have been fortunate to have lecturers and tutors who have inspired me, broadened my aspirations and created safe learning environments. This has strongly shaped my approach as a tutor and I strive to pass on these positive learning experiences through my own teaching. I leverage my own experiences as a student to rapidly build rapport with classes and provide tailored insights, support and feedback. This has allowed me to build collaborative learning communities and achieve very high levels of engagement within classes.

I am incredibly privileged to tutor and demonstrate for histology, pathology and pharmacology across all 8 of the Phase 1 Medicine courses, as well as PATH2201, PATH3207 and PHAR2011 which are aimed at medical science and science students. Additionally, I have provided one-on-one mentoring and tutoring support to 8 students spanning Phases 1 to 3 of the Medicine program through the UNSW Nura Gili Indigenous Tuition Program (ITP).

Strengths-based, interactive approach to student engagement

By rapidly building rapport with students in the classroom, I am able to effectively engage with both small and large groups of students in tutorial and practical classes. I apply a strengths-based approach to teaching and facilitating discussions to create a safe learning environment where all students feel comfortable contributing their ideas. This allows me to create a highly interactive environment where students are engaged in active rather than passive learning which I believe is critical when learning complex histopathological or pharmacological concepts in practical classes.

For example, as a course tutor for PATH3207 in 2024 and 2025, I adapted many of the tutorial activities to make them more interactive and to foster small group discussion and collaboration. By developing engaging activities to consolidate key concepts, the students were engaged in active recall, peer-teaching, and collaboration within the classroom. Students found this highly beneficial and I received 100% broad agreement on myExpereince for ‘overall satisfaction with teaching’, ‘encouraged participation, and ‘helpful feedback’ and highly positive student feedback (PATH3207, 2024):

  • “Very engaging and interactive style of teaching. Showed genuine care for her students learning”
  • “She’s very kind and encouraging students to speak”
  • “Super helpful with all the content”
  • “Made me want to come to class”

Personalised, adaptable approach

I am a firm believer that students should have the opportunity to dictate their goals and learning leads. To facilitate this in my one of one tutoring through the Nura Gili ITP, I support and empower my students to reflect on their progress, identify their learning needs and goals, and cultivate a safe learning environment where students feel comfortable to communicate their concerns with me. In response, I tailor and adapt each tutoring session on the spot to their goals to ensure that students receive individualised teaching. In addition to teaching content, I also mentor my students through challenging clinical scenarios, and help them develop academic skills such as how to write an assignment, how to manage their time to study, building a timetable to prepare for exams, etc. As a result, my students consistently achieve Distinctions and High Distinctions in exams, assignments and clinical exams.

Resource development

I developed a tutorial resource for a Medicine Phase 1 Health Maintenance B (HMB) pathology tutorial on portal hypertension. During multiple practical sessions, I noticed that several students identified portal hypertension as an area of confusion and had similar questions. The students particularly liked an analogy I provided as part of my explanation. As a result, I collaborated with the Pathology team to create a PowerPoint resource for a HMB pathology tutorial which elaborated further on my analogy to help improve student understanding. This was ultimately distributed to Phase 1 students and utilised within tutorial classes. As a result I received very positive verbal feedback from multiple students who found the resource helped them “understand it much better now” and “made it make so much more sense” (HMB, 2024).

Building community and collaboration

Additionally, I build community and encourage collaboration through my volunteering as PRINT / CTC tutor and clinical skills mentor for Phase 1 students. For example, as a PRINT tutor I run regular sessions with 4th year medical students focused on academic and study skills for Phase 3 and revising clinical skills in preparation for placement. To ensure that I was able to support as many students as possible, I set up a Teams group chat with my 2 assigned students and encouraged them to add in their friends and peers who were also interested in attending. To guide my teaching sessions, I also asked students to contribute topics or questions in the group chat. As a result, the number of participants in the group chat and subsequent teaching sessions rapidly increased to 8-10 students and I was able to create individualised sessions tailored to the students’ requests. Students subsequently provided feedback that they appreciated being included in my sessions (“thank you for including us in this”, CTC student feedback, 2025) and found them “very informative and helpful” (CTC student feedback, 2025).

Advocacy for student wellbeing and continuing development

I have a strong passion for improving student wellbeing and equitable access to higher education particularly for students from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds. As a student representative in the Medicine Student Wellbeing Action Group (SWAG) since 2022 and Chairperson of the UNSW Student Health Advisory Committee, I collaborate with Faculty, central UNSW Health and Wellbeing Support Services and university leadership to amplify the student voice and ensure that wellbeing concerns and needs are raised and initiatives implemented. These have provided me with a strong understanding of students' wellbeing needs and provide personalised support to students who have approached me with wellbeing concerns or physical or mental health concerns affecting their studies.

In 2025, I was a selected speaker and panellist at the Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success Symposium, STARS Student Success Conference, and the Australasian Academic Integrity Network Conference. I spoke to and collaborated with academics, equity practitioners and the Federal Minister and Shadow Minister for Education to advocate for widening access to higher education for students from equity backgrounds.