Dr Lawrence Sambrooks
Lecturer (Teaching Specialist (Acad))
College of Science and Engineering
Lawrence Sambrooks is a Lecturer (Teaching Specialist) in the College of Science and Engineering and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA). His primary teaching interests are in first-year programming, where he helps students who are new to the discipline build the foundations they need for the rest of their studies and careers. His teaching is grounded in active, experiential learning and the creation of safe-to-fail environments where students can learn from their mistakes.
Lawrence received his PhD from Flinders University in 2017, investigating in-situ Augmented Reality (AR) authoring on mobile devices. His work focused on user experience considerations for authoring interfaces suitable for novice users, and on the impact of different mobile device sizes. This work informed his interest in making technical tools accessible to beginners.
Before rejoining Flinders in 2024, Lawrence spent three and a half years as a Lecturer at the University of Tasmania, where he coordinated the Bachelor of ICT and Diploma of ICT Professional Practice courses, co-led the establishment of an on-campus Pearson VUE Test Centre providing access to industry certification, and served on the state's ICT Workforce Advisory Committee.
Doctor of Philosophy, Flinders University (2017)
Bachelor of Information Technology (Hons I), Flinders University (2012)
I design my teaching around active, experiential learning, where students build understanding by writing code, trying things out, getting things wrong, and reflecting on what happened.
This matters in programming because students are learning two things at once: new concepts and a new language to express them in. I aim to make that manageable by creating safe-to-fail environments, where mistakes are expected and treated as a normal part of the learning process. In practice, I like to incorporate interactive live coding (missteps included), in-class activities, and iterative assessment, enabling students to refine their work in response to feedback.
My primary focus is first-year introductory programming, where a solid foundation shapes everything that follows. I have also taught intermediate programming, fundamental data structures and algorithms, and front-end and back-end web development to undergraduate and postgraduate cohorts in face-to-face, hybrid, and online modes.
I continue to explore new teaching methods that help students get the most from their learning.
Member of the Australian Computer Society (MACS)
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South Australia 5042
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