Professor Craig Savage

My goal in teaching is transformation. I am aiming for my students to be changed: knowing new things, having new skills, and feeling more confident and excited about their place in the world. To achieve this I use the educational research literature to guide classroom practice. Ongoing formative evaluation of student learning is used to improve and validate this practice.

I am also engaged with educational issues outside my classrooms. At ANU we are facing the challenge of integrating a large body of research only staff into teaching. My approach to this is to bring colleagues into courses on a collaborative basis: indeed I have been part of a team that proposed to the ANU Executive and Collaborative Teaching Program. In my role as Associate Director (Undergraduate) of the ANU Research School of Physics and Engineering, I chaired the 2009 Education Working Party, and am responsible for implementing its recommendations. Nationally, I was Chief Examiner for the Australian Physics Olympiad from 1996 to 2001. Internationally, I have developed and advocated information and communication technologies in higher education: most recently as lead on an ALTC funded project.

My more than twenty years of teaching have ranged from first year non-major courses to honours courses and HDR supervision. In 2009 I won an ANU Vice-Chancellor's Award for Teaching  Excellence, and in 2010 I received an Australian Award for University Teaching - Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning.