Dr. Henk Eijkman
Dr.
Henk Eijkman has over 20 years
experience as a learning innovation consultant
in a range of tertiary educational institutions
in Australia that has also taken him to
Malaysia, South Africa, Palestine, and India.
These institutions have included the University
of New South Wales, Canberra Campus, The
University of New England, Monash University,
The New South Wales Police Academy, and
Technical And Further Education (TAFE), New
South Wales. Dr. Eijkman is currently a
visiting Fellow at the UNSW Canberra Campus and
visiting Professor of Academic Development at
ADCET Engineering College, India.
Henk was awarded his PhD from the University of
Canberra in 2004 (with
his thesis ‘Online Learning as Curricular
Justice? A Critical Framework for Higher
Education’). Before that he gained a Graduate
Diploma in Technical Education with Distinction
(1994), a Master of Arts, in Sociology (1990),
and a Bachelor of Arts, Social Science (with
Distinction) in 1987.
Henk’s ability to operate effectively as a
learning solutions specialist also draws on his
richly diverse life experiences. Starting out as
an aircraft maintenance engineer but wanting to
work with people rather than machines he then
worked in the social welfare sector.
Subsequently as a sociologist, he turned to
teaching in the social sciences. These
experiences led him to develop an interest in
facilitating strategic innovation and leadership
in learning. He has consequently gained a
reputation for being at the cutting edge of
developments in assessment, curriculum and
educational technologies in on-campus and
flexible learning environments.
His pervasive interest in access and equity in
tertiary education, and his work in diverse
cultural contexts, such as in South Africa,
Malaysia, Palestine, and India, has led to a
keen interest in exploring non-western,
post-colonial perspectives on education,
learning, educational research, social
inclusion, and leadership and in working with
educational institutions, organisations and
communities in disrupted and post-conflict
societies. This reflects a central theme running
through his professional career: the desire to
engage in projects that make a genuine
difference to communities and marginalized
social groups and a distinct preference for
participatory approaches to action learning and
action research.
Consequently his work and research agenda,
firmly grounded in a social theoretical
perspective on learning, focuses on the
development of communities of practice, the role
of social media in learning in tertiary and
community settings and organisational
knowledge-work; leadership, and advocacy geared
to organisational culture change; the politics
of knowledge; and post-colonial approaches to
the internationalization of learning.
As well as being the editor-in-chief of ‘The
Learning Organisation’, co-editor of the
International Journal of Quality Assurance in
Engineering and Technology Education (IJQAETE)
he has been a keynote speaker and publishes
widely. He is co-editor of two books, an author
of book chapters
and
of numerous papers in international journals. He presents
conference papers and serves on a number of
Conference Committees.
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