Principal lecturer and academic leader, Communication Design, Otago Polytechnic

"Highly collaborative and innovative, Caro is passionate about connecting learners to community and urban development"

An artist, designer, researcher, mum and dedicated teacher, Caro excels in using collaborative processes to engage learners and connect her teaching to community development and industry outcomes. Her innovative teaching approaches create opportunities for students to actively learn within real-life contexts. She supports them to take ownership of their learning and uses storytelling to create dialogues with their experiences.

Caro builds partnerships with her learners and negotiates with them to ensure that the learning and assessment methodologies used are culturally appropriate and embed different philosophies and approaches to learning and achievement. As a result, learner success has soared with Māori success peaking at 100% in 2013.

Student evaluations of her teaching also consistently produce outstanding results. Caro is highly esteemed by her students and colleagues. The attestation from one wrote “Mā te kahukura kā rere te manu – the feathers of the bird help to soar high .. please continue to lead, inspire, motivate and support others, we so appreciate what you’ve done for us.”