Amelia is a poly-professional with degrees and admission to the teaching & legal professions in multiple jurisdictions. She has practiced banking/finance\eCommerce law internationally and worked in private enterprise to start and grow pro-social industries. Amelia has taught primary, secondary and university (undergraduate and graduate) and led educational reform as a school principal and system leader.
Amelia is presently completing a Graduate Certificate in Educational Research and will formally commence a PhD at Monash University (with international visiting fellowships to enhance capacities in space science, quantum physics and neuroscience) as part of an Australian Research Council funded project. Her research involves both neuroscience and quantum physics as she explores how children form (and lose) conceptual understandings of Science, Technologies, Engineering & Mathematics (“STEM”) to identify better practices and devise strategies to enact/empower\evaluate better teaching and learning in our homes/schools\communities. Spoiler alert: it involves the ARTS!!! She also has LOTS of side-gigs and shenanigans to boot.
At the age of 3, Amelia built her first computer interface out of her Sesame Street activity board so that she could take her favorite toys Raggedy Andy and Bunny with her on a space mission where according to reports, “her voice changed to a monotone when she corresponded to other space people” (Cooper, 1981). Later that year, she introduced herself to a random family on the monorail at the Toronto Zoo as ʕæ’li X2. Nobody knows why.
Amelia grew up in Toronto, Canada and spent a great deal of time work shadowing her father (Her mother’s work being far less glamorous yet more important), Manager of Operations at Teleglobe's Toronto headquarters which boasted, inter alia, a real moat and planetarium! She watched and learned as technicians operated the earth station; decoded satellite signals from space and touble-shooted computers that filled rooms the size of her school's gymnasium. She also literally witnessed the dawn of the internet and digital age with the operational roll out of infrastructure world-wide.
Amelia wasn’t terribly interested in any of this and spent a great deal of time spinning on chairs in her father’s office, playing with calculators then computers (being the first to cross the Oregon Trail without any cholera casualties and putting Printshop into liquidation by creating all possible combinations of posters, banners & greetings cards - there's even a rumour that she WAS/IS\WILL BE(COME) Carmen San Diego). As always, Amy was curious, and therefore, got up to loads of mischief. She has fond recollections of playing games and spending quality time with the company's security guards and secretaries.
FAST FORWARD: *there is some really good content here (including the verifiable origin story of the baby shark song) but all directors will tell you that the best bits often end up on the cutting room floor.
Amelia commenced her Bachelor of Arts (Honors) in English and Mass Communications at York University where she led a team to create a 4D virtual play-world of T.S Elliott’s The Wasteland, collaborated on various film and multimedia projects and piloted her honours thesis applying humanist subculture theory and ethnomusicology with ethnographic research of the goth subculture. She recalls once standing up on a table at the front of an English lecture as Puck to deliver the epilogue/soliloquy in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (for no good reason whatsoever).
Amelia exited early before completing her degree to accept early admission and a scholarship at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University where she won the Newton Rowel Scholarship and Goodman Phillips & Vineberg award. Amelia was selected to compete at the Niagara International Moot Court; ; corroborated evidence indicates she raped her closing submissions Johnny Cochrane style and piloted the Chewbacca Defense to contend that indirect taxation could amount to appropriation under international trade agreements like NAFTA. . She competed in Law Games, wrote and performed (drama & dance) at Mock Trial and occasionally wrote for Obiter Dicta. Amelia also worked as research assistant for faculty and the Institute for Feminist Legal Studies. Former Dean and now Judge of the Supreme Court of Ontario Lorne Sossin wrote her a glowing reference letter that helped launch her legal career at on Bay St.
YADA3 (lowlights include the true story behind the events that 15 years later, inspired that karmic prank you may now know as the Fyre Festival).
FAST FORWARD: Amelia practiced banking/finance\eCommerce law at Clayton Utz in Brisbane and Sydney. She won the People's Choice Award at the Australian Law Council's Golden Gavel and briefly joined the Bar before taking a mid-career break to go on adventures... there's a rumor her hijinx literally landed her at the crossroads where she met the devil, was unimpressed, but just the same stole this cup he was guarding because it was a bring your own keg party she stumbled upon and despite the sacred oaths she swore in years past as a Girl Guide (before she was excommunicated at age 12 for starting a mutiny at camp) ... she answered the call of teaching.
Amelia completed her Graduate Diploma of Education (Distinction) at Queensland University of Technology and then joined Queensland's Department of Education as a teacher (across ALL subjects – one year she taught all subjects and all year levels at a primary school the same time). She was recruited to the Take the Lead initiative and fast tracked to a substantive Principal role; then recruited through Future Leaders and acted as Principal and Principal Advisor: Leadership and Capability for Far North Queensland. She served on the state's Principal's Advisory Council, piloted Effective Age Appropriate Pedagogies with a team from Griffith University and led her school with evidence-based innovation to curriculum, pedagogy and positive behaviour for learning (informed by positive psychology and neuroscience) (recognized with 3 Showcase Awards). Some of that work is chronicled in Chapter 19 of Forgotten places: critical studies in rural education. Counterpoints: Studies in Criticality (494). Peter Lang, New York, United States, pp. 305-322. ISBN 978-1-4331-3070-0. There’s also this article ( https://au.educationhq.com/news/29643/new-age-of-class-clowns/) from Australian Teacher Magazine.
In 2018, Amelia was seconded to James Cook University where she led, lectured and assessed Bachelor of Education and Master of Teaching and Learning units Design & Digital Technologies; Information & Communications Technologies across the [Secondary] Curriculum; and Humanities & Social Studies; and Early Child Education & Care. Some of her first-year students tried to escape her workshop when challenged to design a teleportation device. She was pleasantly surprised when more than one student demonstrated proficiency travelling back in time and was delighted when a number of final assessments evidenced understanding of how to unify general relativity and quantum mechanics.
Amelia is a mother of multiples (twins), inventor and collaborator. She has consulted/collaborated\co-created a variety of projects worldwide in the creative arts & sciences and prosocial industries. Her disruptions include the Gold Coast whale watching industry which changed and challenged the state’s discretion/monopoly to put restraints on trade through permits and licenses (though she may have done it differently in hindsight as Uber was perhaps an unintended consequence). She has commandeered Google’s algorithms to do her bidding more than once.
You better believe you have/are\will see[n] and experience[d] her work.
Amelia always has more work to do/in progress\done than the laws of physics allow and she’s very generous. She’s never hiring, in search of capital or in need of anything she can’t create herself and the last thing she wants is more attention as she likes to keep a low profile, work hard, play harder and enjoy the sweet, simple life…but if you make the effort to connect genuinely and authentically, she just might throw you that bone you’ve been digging for in all the wrong places.
Projects
- AmeliagogyIn Ancient Greece, pedagogues were slaves who carried around the equipment of the children of their elite masters. This is the origin of the word pedagogy - the word we use to describe the disciplinary practice of teaching! More contemporary research and models of adult learning have led to androgogy (adult learning) but this too is problematic as the ultimate aim is to change the behaviour or transfer learning to a person to achieve organisational objectives without regard for the learner's v
- Take the LeadInitially identified as a high performing teacher and selected for fast track professional development and promotion to school principal in 2012. Continued to promote the initiative as an influencer, mentor, consultant and presenter - Presented on practical applications of small school leadership and assisted with facilitation of Feb 2018 MacKay and Nov 2018 Cairns Residentials. https://education.qld.gov.au/about-us/budgets-funding-grants/grants/state-schools/core-funding/take-the-lead
- Effective Age Appropriate PedagogiesIn 2015, the department published the Foundation paper: Age-appropriate pedagogies for the early years of schooling. This paper presents the findings of a review of international research undertaken by Griffith University on behalf of the department. It provides the evidence base that informs teacher practice, as schools across all seven Department of Education regions enact age-appropriate pedagogies in their early years classrooms. Since then schools have been encouraged and supported to work
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Work history
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DoE Partner: Teaching Area Specialist (Design and Digital Technologies)James Cook University
- AustraliaFreelance
Seconded as a Lecturer to teach across the Bachelor of Education (“B.Ed.”) and Masters of Teaching and Learning(“MTL”) leading the design and delivery of the following subjects on the Cairns campus:
• MTL Digital and Design Technologies for Primary Teachers;
• MTL Information and Communication Technologies Across the Curriculum (Secondary);
• B.Ed. Digital and Design Technologies for Primary Teachers; and
• Humanities and Social Science Education for Primary Teachers.
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Principal Advisor: Leadership & CapabilityDepartment of Education
- AustraliaFull Time
Strategically built leadership and capability across key career transition points in the teaching profession to enhance outcomes for every student:
• Management of all regional aspiring and middle leadership capability (capacity) initiatives;
• Co-facilitation of leadership pipeline programs (Mentoring Beginning Teachers; Aspire to Lead; Teacher Leaders; Middle Leaders; Deputy Principals; Aspire to Principal) with the Queensland Education Leadership Institute (QELI) and Queensland University of Technology (QUT);
• Strategic design and implementation of enhanced Beginning Teachers Connect strategy adopted as emerging best practice by Queensland Department of Education.
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Skills
- Teaching
- Art Creation
- Leadership
- Investment
- Social Impact
- Research
- Disruptive Thinking
- UX
- Creating
- Technology
Education
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Post Graduate Certificate in EducationMonash University
Australia
Coursework (research methodologies) and supervised research project as a pre-requisite before formal matriculation to PhD candidature.
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Graduate Diploma in EducationQUT (Queensland University of Technology)
- Brisbane, Australia
Graduate Diploma of Education (Primary) Distinction Average
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Awards
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Regional Showcase Award for Excellence in Primary EducationDepartment of Education
Design and implementation of evidence based innovative Science, Technologies, Engineering, Arts & Mathematics ("STEAM") Improvement Agenda leading to enhanced student, staff and community outcomes.D
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Regional Showcase Award for Excellence in Inclusive EducationDepartment of Education
Led a Professional Learning Community to improve student engagement and academic achievement through evidence based innovation on positive behaviour for learning to BOOST mindfulness, grit, growth mindset & empathy.+ Show more