Description

"Many Faces, Many Voices: Honouring Voice and Visibility through Transmedia/Experiential Story Telling – The Refugee Experience in Australian Schools" Dr. Maria Gindidis currently holds the position of chief examiner and lecturer of core units for the Masters of Teaching and Pre-service Education courses. She also leads the Principal Preparation program for Monash, teaching and designing graduate leadership programs for future school leaders in Victoria (Australia), Indonesia, and China. Maria is an accredited school reviewer for the Department of Education, assisting schools with strategic planning and improvement targets. She also consults in a number of schools developing and coaching school leaders and teachers to include brain-based learning strategies for brain compatible classrooms. Dr. Gindidis has managed major projects for the Victorian Department of Education and was the state coordinator of the Bilingual Schools Initiative involving 15 schools across Victoria. Her dissertation won the prestigious Michael Clyne Award for outstanding research in the area of immigrant languages, and recently, she was awarded an inaugural grant to research and design transmedia storytelling for refugee children. She is an international education and conference speaker on topics involving the practical integration of multimedia in languages and engaging second languages learners. She has delivered many local and international workshops in multi-literacies, thinking curriculum, and has extensively worked as an educational consultant in government as well as independent and Catholic schools across Victoria, Australia. Her international lectures have included Japan, Singapore, Canada, Dubai, and the United States (Harvard University, Boston).