Vili's Intro

• who you are and your area of expertise, making sure to mention any experience you might already have with flexible learning;

My name is Vili Burrow and I have lived in this wonderful city of Dunedin all of my life. I have been employed in the construction industry all of my 35 years of working life and I'm proud to call myself a carpenter. Now I find myself happily employed as a lecturer in carpentry at Otago Polytechnic where our teaching program is roughly based on a 50/50 split of practical and theory sessions. This is both very challenging and very rewarding, and one of the steepest learning curves that I've ever undertaken.

I'm not quite sure how to grasp the real meaning of the term 'flexible learning' yet, so I have to say any experience of this is limited.

• your reasons for doing this course and what you aim to achieve by taking the course;

As part of my employment contract I agreed to undertake 'formal' teaching qualifications. This has been the biggest challenge to me, not because of any lack of skills in the building field, but because of my lack of (formal) teaching.

From parenthood onwards you never really stop teaching your kids or yourself, but to put big formal words and meanings and methods and styles and names to this has been very eye-opening.

I openly admit that what I've learnt in my brief three years of teaching these student has made me think about our students and the way they learn. And the way or ways that I can teach them better, or to understand easier. The skills I've learnt so far have been invaluable, although not easy to quickly understand, once put into practice they seem to be working in some ways for me. I have to be flexible in my learning and my teaching so any method to make learning and teaching better is a bonus for all.