Teaching context and philosophy

Teaching context and philosophy

Teaching context

I joined the School of Population Health in 2021 after many years in research, consulting, and evaluation roles based in health services and in industry. A lot of my teaching draws on that experience of working inside health organisations and government.

My students are postgraduate health management and public health students. Around three quarters already work in health services, ranging from early-career staff to senior managers and clinicians. Around one in five are international students. Most students study online - roughly 60% asynchronously, 25% in live online sessions, and 15% in person. Most fit their study around full-time work and caring commitments.

I convene PHCM9391 Health Organisations, Strategy and Change, a core course in the NSW Masters of Health Leadership and Management that has around 400 students enrolled every year. I convened PHCM9615 Principles and Practice of Primary Health Care from 2018 to 2024 and still teach into it, and I give guest lectures in other School courses. Since 2023 I have been the School's first Director of Double Degrees, a role covering around 600 students whose enrolments across the Master of Public Health, Master of Global Health, Master of Health Leadership and Management, and Master of Infectious Disease Intelligence programs, and I am one of the School Student Integrity Advisors. I also supervise higher degree research candidates, most of them senior health professionals studying part time. Across my career I have taught more than 3,000 people.

Teaching philosophy

My approach draws on self-determined learning (heutagogy) and on Kolb's experiential learning theory, which also shaped my earliest scholarship on health impact assessment training as "learning by doing". Postgraduate students who work in health services learn most when they can decide where to focus their learning and connect it to organisations and contexts they know. My assessments ask students to analyse real issues and real organisations, and students have choice about what they examine.

Donaldo Macedo's writing has shaped how I think about my own role as a teacher. Macedo argued that dialogue is a way of knowing, that we as educators diminish when we treat it as just a technique for getting students to participate. Macedo was influenced by the Freirean ideas of adult learners being "critical co-investigators in dialogue with the teacher" (Pedagogy of the Oppressed, p. 81). I try to teach this way. My students often know more than I do about the topics and organisations they’re investigating, and I try to make that knowledge part of what we examine together, while taking responsibility for introducing them to the skills, theory and evidence they need.

The courses I convene ask students to change how they think (adopting an organisational and strategic perspective), what they value (listening to stakeholders and staff), and what they can do (using analytic tools and writing reports). These correspond to three of the kinds of learning Lewin (1942) wrote about - change in cognitive structure, change in motivation and values, and the acquisition of skills (something I teach about in PHCM9391). Learning on all three fronts at once is uncomfortable, especially for people returning to study after years in practice – a lot of that discomfort comes from not knowing what’s expected of them. I try to reduce this with clear guidance, scaffolded tasks aligned to rubrics, and worked examples. I also sequence assessment so that students get most of their marks and feedback back before the final task, which helps them to manage the workload and reduces high-stakes tasks.

I evaluate the changes I make to my teaching and try to share what I learn - including where things don’t work as intended. My evaluation of a redesigned AI-based assessment found that it achieved its primary aim but produced less critical engagement than I'd hoped for. My research collaborators and industry partners review my assessments and contribute to my courses.

Recognition

  • 2026 Jan Ritchie Excellence in HDR Mentoring Award, School of Population Health
  • 2026 Alan Hodgkinson Award for Teaching Excellence, School of Population Health
  • 2024 Alan Hodgkinson Award for Teaching Excellence, School of Population Health
  • 2022 School of Population Health Higher Degree by Research Supervisor Award
  • 2021 Honourable mention, Scientia Education Academy Exemplary Teaching Awards

Sources

Castells, M. (Ed.). (1999). Critical education in the new information age. Rowman & Littlefield.

Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed (M. B. Ramos, Trans.; 30th anniversary ed.). Continuum. (Original work published 1970)

Harris-Roxas, B., Sunjaya, A., Ong, R., Nash, K., & Blazek, K. (2026). “Definitely not to be fully relied on, but useful all the same”: Developing critical AI literacy through structured assessment redesign in postgraduate health management education. EdArXiv. https://doi.org/10.35542/osf.io/js6kw_v1

Lewin, K. (1942). Field theory and learning. In N. Henry (Ed.), The forty-first yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education: Part 2, The psychology of learning (pp. 215–242). University of Chicago Press.