workforce
campusreview.com.au
Dr Kevin Larkin receives his award from
UA chair Professor Margaret Gardner (left)
and La Trobe’s deputy vice-chancellor
(academic) Professor Kerri-Lee Krause.
was social and behavioural sciences.
There’s a physical sciences category,
law category, and so on. But that’s all
you know. You know that overall one of
those seven people will be selected as
the University Teacher of the Year, but
you don’t know who it is. So, it was really
surprising when the professor read my
name out. It was a little bit overwhelming,
really. But I’m very proud of working for
Griffith and what they’ve allowed me
to achieve.
On that note, I saw that you have an
equation that summarises your teaching
methods. Can you briefly explain what it is
and what it means?
to do it properly, you have to give a lot
of yourself.”
Aside from his love of education,
Campus Review spoke to Larkin about
maths engagement, teacher attrition and,
of course, his formula for success.
CR: Did the win surprise you?
KL: Yes. The way the awards work is there
are seven categories for the individual
award. There are also some program and
team categories. So, you know that you’ve
been successful in your category, so mine
It’s just a way of trying to frame what
I do with students. It’s not strictly a
mathematical equation, I’m using the
term equation a little bit loosely, but
what I try to do is, firstly, with any of my
teaching, establish positive relationships
with people. That applies to when I’m
working with preschool children, primary
school children, secondary, tertiary
students, and working with teachers. If
you haven’t established a relationship
with people, it’s very difficult for them
to trust you. It’s very difficult for them to
let you know they’re having issues with
their learning or with things affecting
their learning. To be honest, it makes
my job inauthentic if I haven’t made that
connection with them. So, that’s the first
part of the equation.
Then building on top of that, you need
good pedagogical content knowledge.
You need to know your discipline. In
my case, that’s mathematics education.
It’s all well and good getting along with
people, but that’s not your core job.
That allows you to do your core job,
which is helping them learn. In my case,
I’m working with two different sets of
people. One, the people who are going
to become primary school teachers
one day, and that brings its own set of
rewards and challenges. Then the other
thing is an Australia-wide project I’m
working on with preschool children,
STEM. But regardless of whether it’s the
adults or whether it’s the young children
and their educators, you need better
relationship-building and you need
that content.
Then on top of that, as an educator
I need to be reflective about my practice,
to evaluate my own teaching, to evaluate
the student learning, and then make
changes to future iterations. That’s the
thing that happens on the fly. As you’re
working with people, you’ll see quickly
their body language. Something’s not
going the way you wanted it to go, and
so there’s the ability to be able to pivot at
that point. But then other times it might
be when you’re walking along the beach
or something and you think about what’s
been happening in the course or what’s
been happening in the project and you
make changes then.
So, they’ve always been part of my
teaching. The big part that’s changed for
me now that I work at the university –
I’ve had 30 years in primary education,
as a primary school teacher and then
leadership positions – is that I also base all
of those things I’ve always intuitively done,
almost, on research.
I’m involved in a lot of research around
how to teach undergraduates maths
education, research around attitudes
towards mathematics for primary school
children, research around the role of
When I’m working
with people and I’m helping
them to learn, I get a real
buzz out of it.
digital technologies. That’s a big part of
what I do in maths education. Then that
last little bit, the digital technologies,
has led to my work on the Elsa Project,
which is embedding digital technologies
to inspire young children’s interest and
engagement instead.
That’s really exciting me. I still get excited
about working with the adults. So they’re
the four elements that go together in my
teaching approach.
Those are all principles that I think most,
if not all, teachers strive to uphold. Do
you think that you just do all of them
exceptionally, or are you doing something
different?
That’s a hard question to answer. It’s
part of the reason why I’ve been having
a bit of trouble getting my head around
things. I’m just doing my job. Maybe
what’s different, and I don’t want to talk
for anyone else, but for me, teaching is a
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