Dr Helena Bender

Helena Bender BRITE Lab

Contact: hbender@unimelb.edu.au

About:

Helena is a teaching specialist based in the School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences. She is also a Shepherd for the Trinity Environment, Development & Design subject. Helena joined BRITE Lab to be able to share and discuss teaching and learning scholarship.

 

Areas of Expertise in Teaching Practice:

  • Teaching and assessing skills
  • Using tools and strategies to promote active, conceptual and collaborative learning
  • Designing Tutorial, Workshop and Practical classes
  • Facilitating and teaching field trips

Educational Research Areas of Interest:

  • Sustainability
  • Experiential Learning Opportunities
  • Scaffold students’ learning within online learning platforms, such as like Perusall
  • Assessment & Rubric Design to support learning
  • Higher-order thinking approaches
  • VCA Environmental Science

Current Research:

Helena is interested in experiential learning that has a sustainability focus. She has been working on:

  • Investigating ways to integrate sustainability into subjects in ways that will build students understanding of sustainability and how they can affect change
  • How best to scaffold students’ learning within online learning platforms like Perusall

Educational Research Publications:

  • Browne, G., Bender, H., Bradley, J. & Pang, A. (2020). Evaluation of a tertiary sustainability experiential learning program. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, 21(4): 699-715. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSHE-08-2019-0241

 

Educational Research Grants & Awards:

  • 2019 – University of Melbourne Learning and Teaching Initiative, Sustainability-based learning database University of Melbourne Learning and Teaching Initiative 2014
  • 2014 – Smartphone App for field-based experiential and iterative learning (Field Friend), Collier Charitable Fund
  • 2013 – University of Melbourne Learning and Teaching Initiative 2013, Integration of the LMS and Blackboard Mobile Learn application for Reshaping Environments
  • 2012University of Melbourne Learning and Teaching Initiative, Towards a common assessment process approach for Bachelor of Environments tutors

 

Educational Conferences:

  • CSHE Symposium (2011)
  • Practical application of interdisciplinary process AARE (2010)
  • Chair of a symposium on constructing an interdisciplinary textbook VC Colloquium (2009) Interdisciplinarity practice