Prestigious scholarship for lifelong learner

ASSOCIATE Professor Robyn Brandenburg has made a habit of doing things first.

She was the first person in her family to attend university, the first Federation University educator to win a National Teaching Excellence Award, and as a researcher of teacher performance assessments and their effectiveness, she’s just marked a new achievement.

Exploring the ways to decipher whether a graduate is ripe for teaching, Associate Professor Brandenburg’s work has earned her a Fulbright Scholarship.

Part of FedUni’s School of Education, it’s the first Fulbright Scholarship ever awarded to an academic from the Ballarat tertiary institution, which she said is extremely “prestigious.”

It gives her the green light to spend September to November at Montclair State University in the United States, completing more investigation into initial teacher education.

She was “thrilled, delighted and amazed” to be a recipient, but always felt throughout the application process that she was working on something very worthy.

“It really responds to a critical question that we’re working towards and knowing more about in research in education, so I felt quietly acknowledged that this is an important process,” Associate Professor Brandenburg said.

“Then it was just pure delight, and the opportunity is incredible.”

Associate Professor Brandenburg wanted to be a teacher from a very young age, and she’s dedicated her life and work to the field.

“I’m a lifelong learner around education, so this to me is incredible recognition and an example of somebody who has a name, a passion about what they do and can see where a contribution can actually change things and create a better system for people coming through,” she said.

The Fulbright Scholarship program coordinates collaborative international research exchanges to promote cultural empathy and the sharing of ideas.

Associate Professor Brandenburg is the School of Education’s associate dean of research and president of the Australian Teacher Education Association.