To be an instigator of change is one of the reasons Bachelor of Education graduate Laura Dean chose teaching as a career.
“Education is a great way to inspire and equip young people to realise their full potential and it’s also an interesting career, where no two days are alike,’’ she said.
“As a teacher, I’m constantly using my creativity to problem solve and creating interesting lessons for my students.”
At Windaroo Valley State High School Laura teaches Year 8 Creative Arts, Humanities and English and Year 10 History.
“It’s a great mix of classes and lots of variety.”
Europeanexchange
During her degree Laura spent a summer on exchange at the University of Exeter in England, where she studied visual culture and 12th century European history.
“It was an incredible experience. My visual culture lecturer was a curator at the TATE in London, and as part of our course we enjoyed a behind-the-scenes look at how the exhibition was set up and a Q and A with other TATE staff,’’ she said.
“Also, as part of my history studies, we were able to handle and examine 12th century manuscripts that had been bound into books stored at a local museum.”
As a Griffith Honours College student Laura undertook two research projects on student engagement including the determining the reasons why students become disengaged with education.
“This gave me an insight into educational research and it’s an area I’m interested in pursuing in the future,” she said.
“Griffith gave me the opportunity to do prac at a range of different schools (both state and private) and teach a range of year levels. These experiences let me observe and work with a variety of great teachers and add their advice to my teaching practice.
“I had such great lecturers and tutors at university. They had such diverse backgrounds and brought great experience and knowledge with them. They were also approachable, personable, and seemed to be genuinely interested in developing you to be the best possible teacher you could be.”