John Murrie
Te Whatu Kairangi Award
A high-flyer in aviation training
John Murrie is a Lecturer, School of Aviation at Massey University
John is an outstanding practitioner in aviation training, employing highly innovative and unique teaching methodologies to ensure every learner’s needs are met. His innovative approach ensures that the learning environment is directly linked to real-world problems and strict industry standards.
Always student-centred, John has formed successful student-teacher partnerships to reduce the complexity of a course; co-creating learning resources and student friendly lesson plans for every course module. Student-led activities like this now take up to half of all classroom sessions, which has had a significant positive effect on student learning and outcomes.
His students have expressed their gratitude for his devotion, openness and effectiveness and for creating such a positive environment. One student comments, “John is by far the lecturer who teaches [online] to the most effect.”
His contribution to higher education extends well beyond the immediate teaching environment, whether providing generous support to his peers or contributing to his university’s strategy, policy and teaching practices where his contributions are considered “unfailing insightful” and “an invaluable asset”.
A colleague describes him as “…a generous and empathetic teacher who can readily draw on his own experiences as a learner…”. Not surprisingly, his teaching practices have been adopted by his former students who have gone on to become aviation instructors themselves.