Biography

Professor Anthony Williams is the Head of School of Architecture and Built Environment and has extensive experience in project management in the domain of professional education. He is a winner of multiple University Teaching Awards as well as a National Awards for Teaching Excellence. He has worked extensively in curriculum design and implementation both at program and course levels. He is highly regarded in this area having worked as a curriculum consultant nationally and internationally. His research area is in Design Cognition with recent projects involving identification of core skills for effective participation in virtual design teams.

Qualifications

• Doctor of Philosophy, University of Newcastle, 2006
• Bachelor of Education (Applied Arts), Avondale College
• Master of Curriculum Studies, University of New England
• Bachelor of Education (Industrial Arts), University of Newcastle

Research

Research keywords

• Design Cognition
• Design Education

Research expertise

I research in two areas of Design, the first is design collaboration specifically the ways in which designers collaborate both in the face to face domain as well as the virtual domain. This extends to the Knowledge, skills and attitudes which designers need to be effective collaborators.

My second area of research is in Design Education. Specifically what are the curriculum models, teaching methods and assessment models which support the creative processes of design.

Collaboration

• Design cognition
• Spatial ability and spatial performance
• Creativity, design and education
• Creativity and assessment
• Construction education in Australia
• Problem-based learning in a virtual-reality context
• Virtual environments in collaborative design
• Virtual mentoring and virtual teams
• Work Integrated Learning
• Online learning
• Competency Descriptors

Fields of Research

Centres and Groups

Centre

• Centre for Interdisciplinary Built Environment Research

Administrative

Administrative expertise

I have been the Assistant Dean for Teaching and Learning for over five years.

I have become the Head of School of the School of Architecture and Built Environment in 2007 after 2 years as Deputy Head of School.

Teaching

Teaching keywords

• Design
• Professional Education

Teaching expertise

I currently teach in two domains within the University. The first, which is my Discipline domain, is design and manufacture. This is predominantly taught into the Design and Technology programme but also into Architecture and the Built Environment.

I also teach professional education in the Graduate Certificate in the Practice of Tertiary Teaching. This programme provides lecturers at the University of Newcastle with foundation skills in teaching.