Graham Foster

Professional Teaching Fellow

Contact details
Building 303, Room 612
Phone: +64 9 373 7599 ext 82364
Email: g.foster@auckland.ac.nz

Graham Foster has come from being Director of Science and Head of Physics at a large Auckland secondary school and is currently Senior Tutor in Physics. His involvement in curriculum development and student management has led to several research papers about pedagogy and Physics topics to be published.

• 1998 Bayer Award for Outstanding contribution to Science Education
• 2000 Royal Society of New Zealand Teacher Fellowship (working with NIWA on fisheries research and oceanography)
• 2003 Auckland Science Teachers’ Association award for Highly Valued Contribution to Science Education

Since coming to the Physics Department in 2009, Graham has been teaching several main courses, particularly in Thermodynamics, Electricity and Magnetism and Optics & Waves. His research has focused on improving student participation and achievement and several new initiatives, including student-lecturer feedback loops and team based Learning are being implemented in 2010.

• Physics education including team based learning, feedback and feed-forward, alignment between learning and assessment, and effectiveness of other teaching strategies in physics
• Physics education in the outdoors at the Physics Dept Ardmore Research and Education Park

• Faculty of Science “Innovations in Teaching and Learning Committee”
• Promotion of physics to secondary teachers and students
• Career Links in Physics

• 2011: "Involvement, Engagement and Implications - indicators of teaching development potential in a large Stage 1 Physics course", paper presented at the Science Education Research Symposium, University of Auckland on Nov 24th and 25th, 2011.
• 2011: "Is This the Answer?" Identifying barriers to learning in physics at stage 1 and suggested strategies.
• 2010: "Changes to NCEA 2011 to 2013 and predicted effects on Physics teaching at University of Auckland"
• 2010: "Student perceptions of studying Physics at The University of Auckland".
• 2010: “Aligning learning and assessment through adaptive strategies in tutorials in Physics at the University of Auckland”, paper presented at The National Uniserve Science Conference, The University of Sydney, Australia, September 2010.
• 2009: “Linking into Physics”.
• 2009: “How do we keep them? Identifying and dismantling barriers to participation, performance and progression in Stage I Physics courses”.