Administered by Ako Aotearoa, the $20,000 award was presented to Dr McKinnon at a ceremony at Parliament hosted by Rt Hon Bill English.
Originally from Alberta, Canada, Dr McKinnon has been at Victoria since 2010 and has more than 15 years’ experience teaching theatre.
Dr McKinnon says his teaching philosophy is simple—“teach the person, not the subject”.
“In the first part of my teaching career I was more concerned with measuring what students know. Now I’m more interested in learning who they are and how I can help them achieve what they want.”
Dr McKinnon embraces innovative teaching methods, and was recently involved in creating ‘audio walks’ around Victoria’s Kelburn campus. “Instead of going to a lecture theatre and hearing someone talk about things happening somewhere else, you can do the audio walk and learn directly,” he says.
Dr McKinnon says he is currently exploring ideas about failure, which challenge the success bias in research.
“In general only successful projects get reported, so I’m trying to show that in the creative process, and in research, you often have more failures than successes. It’s misleading, especially for your students, to create the impression that everything you do is gold. I’m interested in revealing the entire process.”
Dr McKinnon says he is honoured to have received the award, one of 12 Sustained Excellence awards presented at the ceremony.
“I think it’s a real credit to the Centre for Academic Development at Victoria and its Higher Education Learning and Teaching programme. I was the first graduate of that programme from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, and I learned the difference between being a popular lecturer and actually helping people learn.
“The award has also made me reflect on how well supported I’ve been by staff in the Theatre programme. Every innovation or attempt I’ve made to improve things was given a chance.
“I’m also very appreciative of all the students I work here with, who have similarly been very trusting and receptive.”
The Tertiary Teaching Excellence Awards celebrate New Zealand’s best tertiary teachers as recognised by their organisations, colleagues, learners and broader communities.
Ako Aotearoa—the National Centre for Tertiary Teaching Excellence—aims to recognise and celebrate excellence in tertiary teaching and share good practice that has proven benefit for learners.