Dr. Glyn Thomas is the Discipline Lead for Outdoor Environmental Studies in UniSC’s School of Education and Tertiary Access and a core member of the Indigenous and Transcultural Research Centre (ITRC). His work aligns with the ITRC’s goals by exploring the role of outdoor education in fostering environmental awareness, cross-cultural understanding, and community engagement.
In 2016, Glyn established UniSC’s Bachelor of Recreation and Outdoor Environmental Studies program, which has become a cornerstone of outdoor education at the university. His innovative contributions to curriculum design and experiential teaching earned him a Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning from the Australian Awards for University Teaching (AAUT) in 2021.
Awards/Fellowships
- Fellowship, Outdoor Education Australia (OEA)
- Fellowship, Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia (HERDSA)
The primary focus of Dr Thomas' research has been experiential education philosophy and practice. Dr Thomas has specifically focused his research on two areas: the theory and practice of facilitation and facilitator education, and outdoor environmental education. Recently Dr Thomas has been investigating socially inclusive pedagogies in higher education and the signature and distinctive pedagogies within the outdoor environmental education field. He is currently researching fieldwork pedagogies in higher education – particularly the use of near-peer pedagogies.
He is currently co-supervising 3 HDR students and has co-supervised three students to completion.
Research areas
- outdoor environmental education
- facilitation and facilitator education
- experiential education
- fieldwork pedagogies
Teaching areas
Dr Glyn Thomas' specialist areas of knowledge include outdoor environmental education, experiential education and facilitator education.