Dr Ollie Thomas

Ollie Thomas BRITE Lab

Contact: thomas.o@unimelb.edu.au

About:

Ollie is a Teaching Specialist in the School of BioSciences and an member of BRITE Lab. His teaching experiences are wide ranging having taught Chemistry, Biology, Philosophy, Mathematics and Music as a Secondary School teacher.

Ollie is currently part of a BRITE Lab team running a longitudinal study measuring critical thinking and conceptual understanding in Biology students. In this study, we gather demographic data as well as implement the Bio-MaPS framework to determine changes in conceptual understanding, as students progress through their degree.

 

Areas of Expertise in Teaching Practice:

  • Written and verbal communication
  • Assessment design
  • “Big picture” Curriculum design
  • Trans- or multi-disciplinarily approaches

 

Educational Research Areas of Interest:

Ollie’s Educational research interests include

  • Transdisciplinary education practices
    • For example, what pedagogical practices can we learn from other non-Science practical disciplines (e.g. Music, Visual Arts) and implement in our own teaching?
  • Best practices that enhance both engagement and scaffolding of students, as they traverse zones of proximal development

Current Research:

Ollie currently runs (alongside Prof Raoul Mulder, A/Prof Mark Green, Drs Lauren Salo and Lara Grollo) a longitudinal study, “Measuring growth in student conceptual understanding of Biology”.

This study aims to examine our new, developed foundational biology curriculum. This curriculum is designed to help students improve their understanding of key concepts.

We are specifically asking these questions;

  • How effective is this biology curriculum at achieving its intended goal?
  • How does student conceptual understanding of biology change over the course of their undergraduate degree?
  • What factors influence the degree to which students experience growth in conceptual understanding?