UNSW Business School academics recognised outstanding teaching

“Entrepreneurship is an interactive process. Learning it from books and observation is insufficient. My approach to teaching entrepreneurship offers authentic interaction between students and external stakeholders,” says Dr Martin Bliemel, from UNSW Business School.

He was recognised for preparing management students to become entrepreneurs by creating authentic and respectful learning experiences.

“Inside the classroom, students benefit from interacting with industry guests and peers during workshops aimed at developing each team’s business ideas,” he says. “Outside the classroom, teams interact with external stakeholders by regularly experimenting with their business ideas and receiving feedback from industry mentors, customers, and investors. Teams then share what they learn from these weekly interactions with the rest of the class.”

In one of his courses, the final presentations are at the world’s top ranked business incubator, Australia Technology Park Innovations, ATPi.

He says, “students also present their ideas to a live panel of investors and compete for prizes that enable them to pursue their business ideas beyond their course. Taken together, these authentic learning experiences help students to internalise and personalise course materials and prepare them for entrepreneurial future careers.”

Lecturer Natalie Buckmaster, from the School of Accounting at the UNSW Business School received a separate citation for developing the professional capabilities of her postgraduate students through ‘The Living Classroom’, which inspires by immersing students in ‘real world’ accounting activities.

“The reward is recognition of the importance of working for an excellent faculty and institution that strongly supports innovation in learning and education,” she says.

“My philosophy is that accounting need not be dry if students are helped to place themselves in a global world where their skills can enable them to become great leaders, managers and creators. Therefore, my approach is to place students at the centre of a learning experience. Students learn that successful accounting enables outstanding business professionals, if they apply a multi-dimensional model.”

She says her contribution is to provide a toolbox of active-learning methodologies. “Students engage through authentic cases, creative role-play, simulation, animation, picture drawing, video, and storytelling. My approach is unusual in accounting education, which more commonly uses traditional methods delivered from text books, as my students consistently place themselves in real-world situations of learning and discovery."

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The Australian Awards for University Teaching are administered by the Office for Learning and Teaching.