Ms Helen Johnston

Welcome to my homepage at the University of South Australia.

As a member of the university-wide team of Lecturers: Learning Advisers, I am involved in developing language and learning development programs, course-specific and generic online student resources and working with individual undergraduate and postgraduate students. I have a particular interest in enhancing the first year experience for students from equity groups and international students.In 2008 I was a member of the two teams which won the UniSA Enhancing Learning Awards 2008, one for work on the First Year Experience and the other for Mawson Lakes International Transition.

Learning Advisers develop a wide range of student self-help resources. Many are course-specific, written collaboratively with course coordinators, and embedded in core undergraduate and postgraduate Masters courses. The quality of our work has beeen recognised in the 2001 inaugural Vice Chancellor's Award for Innovation and the 2002 Australian Award for University Teaching.

Most recently I have been working with several colleagues on improving student engagement through two outreach initiatives using social software. I am co-author of two blogs Learning and teaching Unit @ Mawson Lakes and Scientists Write!

Learning Advisers are one element of UniSA's Learning and Teaching Unit. We are located within the broadly based LTU, a services unit which includes Academic Development staff, Counsellors, Disability Advisers,International Student Advisers and Online Advisers.

I am at Mawson Lakes, an outer metropolitan campus in the city of Adelaide, the main site for the Division of Information Technology, Engineering and the Environment. It's also the home campus for many programs offered by the School of Education, Division of Education, Arts and the Social Sciences.The School of Management in the Division of Business also offers a number of programs here.

The Learning and Teaching Unit

Studying at UniSA:Learning and Teaching Unit

• Student learning in higher education and English for academic and professional purposes
• The transition to university - as it affects both new students and those transitioning into a new university and a new country.
• Developing effective self-access learning resources for university students

Higher Education & Research Society of Australia (HERDSA);

Association of Academic Language and Learning (AALL)

Master of Education(Language and Literacy),University of South Australia, Adelaide

Grad. Dip. Applied Linguistics (TESOL), Macquarie University, Sydney

Grad.Dip.(Reading Ed), Adelaide College of the Arts & Education, Adelaide

Dip Teaching, Adelaide Teachers College, Adelaide

AUA(Arts & Education),Uni of Adelaide, Adelaide

• The first year experience and transition to university.
• Communication at university including using English for academic and professional purposes.
• Equity in higher education.

Johnston, H, Duff, A & Quinn, D 2009, 'Cutting the cloth to fit new needs and communication preferences'. Ergo, vol 1, no 2, pp. 27 - 38.

Johnston, H, Aziz, SM, Kaya, CY, & Quinn, D 2008, 'Engaging students, encouraging success'. Refereed conference paper for the ATN Assessment Conference: Engaging students in asssessment, Adelaide, Nov 20 - 21, 2008.

Quinn, D, Stokes-Thompson, F, Johnston, H & Luong, L 2008, 'Experimenting with new approaches to work-integrated learning with international students in engineering', Refereed conference paper for the Australian Collaborative Education Network - World Association for Collaborative Education Conference, Sydney Sept 30 - Oct 3 2008.

Johnston, H, Duff, A & Quinn, D 2008, 'Cutting the cloth to fit new needs and communication preferences' Refereed conference presentation, ERGA Conference, Sept 2088, Adelaide.Forthcoming Proceedings.

Duff, A, Quinn, D, Johnston, H & Lock, P 2007, 'A clue a quest and a blog', Refereed conference paper for the First Year in Higher Education conference, Brisbane, July 4 - 7 2007.

Quinn, D, Duff, A & Johnston, H 2007, 'Infusing engagement, enjoyment (joy) and reflection into teaching', Refereed conference paper for HERDSA 2007 - Enhancing Higher Education Theory and Scholarship, Adelaide 8 - 11 July 2007.

Johnston, H, Duff, A & Quinn, D 2007, 'Cutting the cloth to fit new needs and communication preferences' Unrefereed conference presentation, The Association for Academic Language and Learning Conference, Melbourne, 2007 http://unisatri-day07.blogspot.com/

Quinn, D, Duff, A, Johnston, H, & Gursansky, D 2007,'Blogging - infusing engagement (joy) and reflection into learning'. in Proceedings of the 30th Annual HERDSA Conference: Enhancng higher education, theory and scholarship. Higher Education & Research Society of Australasia, Adelaide.

Lintern,S, Johnston, H & O'Regan, K 2001, 'The Changing face of Orientation', Journal of the Australian and New Zealand Student Services Association, vol.18, pp.4-19.

O'Regan,K & Johnston, H 2001, 'We all know what an article review is . . .or do we?' In Chanock, K. Sources of Confusion: Refereed proceedings of the National Language and Academic Skills Conference held at La Trobe University, Melbourne. pp.233-243.

O'Regan,K & Johnston, H 2000, We all know what an article review is . . .or do we? Plenary presented at the National Language and Academic Skills Conference, La Trobe University, Melbourne.

Johnston, H, Lintern, S & O'Regan K 2000, 'A comprehensive approach to the induction of students into university in a climate of mass education'. Paper presented at 2000 HERDSA International Conference, Toowoomba, July 2000.

Johnston, H 1999, 'Moving from home to study at University: staff describe the first year experience of rural and isolated students at the University of South Australia'. Paper presented at National Language and Academic Skills Conference held at Monash University, Melbourne.