Geoff Isaacs  FORMER Independent Consultant -- Teaching and Learning in Higher Education I am now retired and this page appears only as a memento

With over 30 years experience in staff development in higher education, including consultancies and workshops in Australia, the Netherlands, Singapore and Sweden, I may be of some help to you. Please look here for a curriculum vitae.

Main areas of activity

Individual and group consultancy

I specialise in working with individual university teachers, groups of teachers, departments, faculties and committees (such as teaching and learning committees and assessment committees) on teaching, learning and assessment issues such as:

• curriculum design and development (including curricula using problem-based learning, project-based learning, or case studies)
• selection of appropriate assessment methods (including self- and peer-assessment, and assessment based on group tasks)
• selection of appropriate teaching and learning strategies (including student centred methods and active variants of more didactic methods)
• development of strategic plans in the area of teaching and learning (teaching and learning enhancement plans)

I have particular strengths in design of assessment programs, including the implementation of criterion or standards based assessment ( here are some web pages I wrote on this topic) and in the use of assessment to promote learning, and in student-centred learning (especially learning that starts with a problem).

Teaching staff development programs

I can help you to design and implement programs to help staff teach (in the broadest sense) better. Programs might be for new staff or for more experienced staff, for tutorial staff or for full-time academics.

I  can also design and run workshops, tailored to your needs, in most areas of teaching, learning and assessment.

Evaluative studies

I am happy to help you to design and implement evaluative studies. Such studies might be as small as a quick evaluation of a subject using, for example, the Nominal Group method. On the other hand, they may be large-scale evaluation projects involving mailed questionnaires, personal interviews, focus group sessions and, for example, classroom observation.

Applying for awards and grants

I have considerable experience both in assisting staff to apply for awards for excellence in teaching (in the University of Queensland and the Australian Awards for University Teaching schemes), and have for a number of years served on the selection committee for University of Queensland awards. I can assist staff to prepare applications which show their achievements in the best light for such awards.

As a researcher with a large number of publications and considerable experience on journal refereeing and editorial panels (see my CV for details) I can help academics

• to design appropriate educational research studies (including participatory action research)
• to prepare material for publication or to decide where already prepared material might be sent.

Contact me

The easiest way to contact me is by email at [email protected]