Torrens Education Staff Profile: Tim Moss, Education Program Director, tells, ‘What makes Torrens unique.’

At Torrens Education, we consider ourselves to be a community of educators.

Many of our students are already working in education themselves, often with years of experience. No matter what side of the lecture theatre you’re facing, we’re all teachers and peers, working together towards the same outcome: improving education in Australia for the benefit of everyone.

Introducing Tim Moss: Education Program Director and Professor of Education.

Tim wears two important hats at Torrens Education.

As Program Director, he’s responsible for the development and delivery of all Torrens Education courses and subjects. As if that wasn’t a big enough job, he’s also a huge support to students and staff as they navigate their way through the courses, making sure that everyone is getting the education they need.

As a Professor of Education, his role is to provide academic leadership in learning and teaching for staff across Torrens University.

“I work behind the scenes to ensure the quality of our offerings, through processes such as assessment moderation, subject and course review, and feedback, monitoring, and mentoring of the teaching staff.”

It’s a good thing he loves what he does because he’s always got something to do.

“I like the variety of my role at Torrens. In an average week, I will meet with staff from across the university to discuss best practices, work closely with our teaching team to refine our approaches to meet student needs, discuss course pathways and progression with students, and participate in planning processes that help me to shape the future of our Education courses.”

Tim began his career as a secondary school teacher specialising in English and Drama teaching, but he soon discovered a new direction. This was the beginning of a journey that eventually brought him to us!

“I very quickly realised that my passion was very much in higher education teaching and research. Since then, I’ve held a variety of different roles at a range of Australian universities, including; as a Head of Learning Support; Deputy Head of a School of Education; Academic Director of Learning, Innovation, and Quality; and now as Professor and Program Director here at Torrens.”

As someone who has worked at a number of different Australia Universities, Tim is in a great position to consider what exactly is it that makes Torrens different.

In his opinion, this comes down to two main points. Firstly – that courses are designed around a ‘real- world’ understanding of what gaps in education most need filling.

“Torrens is not afraid to offer courses that are different; by that, I mean our courses are aimed at genuine areas of need within the profession of education. We are all about finding out what’s not already being covered in existing course offerings and designing a program that will help to improve educational outcomes.

That’s what underpinned our development of the hugely successful Voices of Autism Massive Open Online Course that we ran earlier in 2018, and it’s the same approach that’s driven the development of our courses in Innovation and Change and Special Education.”

In his view, the second big point of difference for Torrens is that courses are designed to be classroom-ready before you even graduate.

 “Our courses are designed from a “practice first” perspective – they are designed to be relevant, authentic, and directly applicable for working professionals.

We don’t think it’s ideal for those seeking further qualifications in Education to have to work through the dense theoretical material before they get to what it means for them.

So, our courses are about learning through practice and finding the theory that helps to explain or understand what happens when we make changes to what we do and how we do it.

That means graduates of our courses finish with more than just ideas about what they’d like to do with their learning; they also finish with portfolios that demonstrate their capacity to apply their learning, and to actually make changes, improve their practice, and analyse the results.”

What does he think are some of the big challenges and opportunities in education today?

“I think that the challenges and opportunities are potentially best identified by those who are working within a specific educational setting. This is the starting point for our courses: we believe the people who best understand what a particular school needs or might be able to create, are those who are most familiar with that setting because they are there every day!”

How do the courses at Torrens help educators address the challenges relevant to their schools? 

“What we offer is a course that offers teachers the opportunity to work through a series of scaffolded processes that allow them to identify what might need to change, and how to make that change in a sustainable, powerful, manner.

We believe that all teachers have the potential to be leaders and to transform schools. We just need to help them, by providing processes and facilitating the change journey.”

For anyone considering studying Education at Torrens, Tim has a special message –

“Don’t hesitate to contact us! We’re more than happy to talk through what it is that you’d like to achieve, and which of our courses might best support you in achieving that outcome.”

Learn more about out our Education courses