Join us for drinks and canapes at the Griffith University’s Southbank campus, situated on the Brisbane river with city views. We will be joined by representatives from the Australian Council of Deans of Education to discuss and explore innovation in initial teacher education.
This event is made possible thanks to Griffith University and the Australian Council of Deans of Education.
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Professor Michele Simons is the Dean and Head of the School of Education at Western Sydney University. She is a graduate of the University of South Australia and the South Australian Institute of Technology. Before joining Western Sydney University late in 2013, Michele was based at the University of South Australia where she held roles as a Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Associate Professor and Head of School/Dean of Education.
At Western Sydney University, Michele has been involved in University-wide projects supporting university- schools engagement, equity pathways to university and partnerships between vocational education and training and universities. Michele has a strong interest in changing trends and shifts in the ways in which education can be challenged to work for the interests of all learners – from early childhood education, children and young people in schools and learners in a wide range of community/post-school institutions and in the higher education sector.
Michele has been an active researcher for more than three decades. The common threads across her work is an interest in workforce planning, learning in the workplace and initial and ongoing professional learning for teachers, leaders and other professional staff employed across all sectors of education. Her most recent projects examined the role that school principals play in retaining teachers and an evaluation of initiates to enhance career education in secondary school settings.
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Simone White is Professor and Dean of the School of Education at RMIT. She is a leading expert in teacher education and professional learning, focusing on the best ways to prepare teachers for diverse contexts, in particular rural, regional and remote. Her research explores the fields of teacher education policy, teacher learning, professional experience and building and maintaining university-school/community partnerships. Simone is a Past President of the Australian Teacher Education Association (ATEA) and has held a number of leadership roles, including Director of Professional Experience at Deakin University, Chair of Teacher Education at Monash and the Associate Dean (International and Engagement) at QUT before taking on her current role as Dean of Education. Simone has been involved in a number of teacher education research projects. She was a key member of the ARC Discovery project titled, Teacher Education for Rural and Regional Australia (TERRAnova) and the ARC Linkage project Studying the Effectiveness of Teacher Education (SETE). Most recently Simone led the Office of Learning and Teaching (OLT) federal grant focused on supporting teachers to engage and partner with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parents and caregivers. Through her collective work, Simone aims to connect research, policy and practice in ways that bring together and break down traditional borders between academics, policy makers, communities and practitioners.
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Professor Barney Dalgarno is Executive Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Canberra and Secretary/Treasurer of the Australian Council of Deans of Education. Barney’s research interests include the educational and social impact of digital technologies, the learning affordances of virtual, mixed and augmented realities, and the future of universities and schools in an age of digital disruption. He has had international influence through over 100 presentations and publications, award winning online learning innovations and editorship of educational technology journals and conference proceedings. Prior to entering academia, Barney worked as a Secondary Mathematics and Computer Studies teacher, and as a Computer Scientist.
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Susan James Relly is Professor of Vocational Education and Head of the School of Education at the University of Adelaide. Previously she was Deputy Director of the Department of Education and Associate Head Learning and Teaching for the Social Sciences Division at University of Oxford. Susan’s entire career has been in education: she taught in secondary schools in Australia and England before starting her academic career. Susan completed a B.Ed at the Queensland University of Technology, and read for a M.Sc in Comparative and International Education at the University of Oxford. Her research interests include vocational education and training (VET) systems and policy; vocational excellence; apprenticeship; work- based learning; on-the-job and off-the-job training; teaching and learning in further education; and social mobility. She has published widely on these topics in journals and books.
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Associate Professor Deborah Heck is Dean of School of Education and Tertiary Access at UniSC. She has been associated with the university since 2010 as an Associate Professor.
As a leader, Debbie is noted for her strong commitment to social justice and equity, and her steadfast interest in creating pathways to higher education that span from enabling programs to PhD work. She is energised by the prospect of working jointly with academic and professional faculties, students, and communities to hone the exploratory, research-oriented and societal support work that leads all involved to (re)imagine education as a place where teachers inspire students to be curious about the world and to address its open questions.
Debbie's academic research focuses on broad areas of education theory, curriculum, policy reform, evaluation and method across multiple theories of discourse. Her work contributes to understanding professional practices, academic innovations, teacher identity, higher education assessment methods, dialogic teaching, cogenerative inquiry and theoretical themes relevant to decolonisation.
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Professor Donna Pendergast is Director, Engagement in the Arts, Education and Law Group and former Dean and Head of the School of Education and Professional Studies at Griffith University, Australia (2009-2023). She commenced her career as a secondary school teacher. Her expertise includes student engagement and teacher professional learning. Donna works at state and national levels in shaping education policy including as: a member of the Board of the Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) (2018-); Chair of the Teacher Education Expert Standing Committee (TEESC) of AITSL (2019-); and in the former roles as Chair of the Queensland Educational Leadership Institute (QELi) (2018-2022); Chair of the Queensland Council of Deans of Education (QCDE)(2016-2022) and Vice President of the Australian Council of Deans of Education (ACDE (2021-2022). Donna is also a member of the National Council for Be You, the school based well-being arm of Beyond Blue (2021-). Donna is a passionate middle years advocate and in an ambassador of Adolescent Success. Donna has been acknowledged for her leadership impact and is the recipient of the Vice Chancellor’s Research Supervision Award for Excellence (2016) and in 2018 was awarded the Australian Council for Educational Leadership Miller-Grassie Award for Outstanding Leadership in Education. In 2022 Donna received the Australian Council of Deans of Education Award for Outstanding Service to Education and the Council. In 2024 she was invested as a Member of the Order of Australia for significant service to higher education.