Community Dinner
Come and join a simple meal and engage in conversations with friends new and old.
FREE EVENT – Everyone is invited to bring food to share for a potluck meal
REGISTER TO ATTEND THE DINNER IN PERSON
Our speaker this month is Dr Annie Gowing
Topic: Care to connect? A conversation about connectedness with Dr Annie Gowing
Connectedness is a complex, multi-layered concept and it is also intensely personal. In this conversation Annie will explore how we all experience, long for and need connections to live a truly meaningful life. She will invite listeners to reflect on their own understandings of connection and consider how young people in particular find connection. In this very fragmented and at times alienating world, a search for connection and connectedness has rarely seemed more urgent. How do we all find our own connections and act as a connector for those in our lives? These are some of the questions Annie will ask in this conversation.
Dr Annie Gowing leads the Wellbeing Specialisation in the Master of Education at The University of Melbourne. With a background in both social work and education, she has been active in the area of wellbeing within schools and in policy development for over 30 years. Her PhD study was on school connectedness and the intersections and confusions between this term and belonging continue to preoccupy her, particularly as they play out in education policy.
Her research interests are broadly centred on the ways in which student and educator wellbeing is understood, implemented, monitored and evaluated in schools and this encompasses the relational climate in schools and higher education settings, along with teacher-student and peer-peer relationships, teacher professional learning, and the concepts of compassion and care in the school context and their inter-cultural understandings.
She has also recently completed research into the contribution of interpersonal capabilities in contributing to wellbeing outcomes in organisations and is a strong advocate for the inclusion of explicit teaching and development of communication skills in initial teacher educational and educator professional learning. She also has strong teaching and research collaborations with schools and tertiary institutions in India, Bhutan and Indonesia.