Lawrence Sambrooks

Lecturer (Teaching Specialist (Acad))

College of Science and Engineering

place Tonsley Building
Flinders University at Tonsley, 1284 South Road, CLOVELLY PARK, SA, 5042

Lawrence Sambrooks is a full time Teaching Specialist in Computer Science within the College of Science and Engineering. His primary teaching interest lies in the field of computer programming, and he is passionate about creating high-quality educational experiences that embrace experiential learning.

Lawrence received his PhD from Flinders University in 2017, in which he investigated user experience (UX) aspects of in-situ Augmented Reality (AR) authoring on mobile devices. His work focussed on establishing considerations for authoring interfaces suitable for novice users together with evaluating the impact of different sized mobile devices on the user experience.

Prior to commencing his current role at Flinders, Lawrence spent three-and-a-half years in Tasmania (lutruwita) as a Lecturer in ICT at the University of Tasmania, where he principally taught introductory programming and web development. During his time there, he also coordinated the Bachelor of ICT and Diploma of ICT Professional Practice courses, co-led the establishment of an on-campus Pearson VUE Test Centre, and served on the state's ICT Workforce Advisory Committee.

Qualifications

PhD (Computer Science), Flinders University
Bachelor of Information Technology (Hons), Flinders University

Teaching interests

My teaching philosophy is aligned with active and experiential learning, and I believe in the merits of learn-by-doing approaches that embrace the valuable experiences gained from being hands-on, making mistakes, and the subsequent reflection this affords.

I believe this approach to be particularly valuable for teaching programming as it is an endeavour that benefits immensely from the doing. I maintain a keen interest in exploring new teaching methods in light of this and the recognition that programming topics often provide added challenge to students as they face not only learning new concepts but also how to express them in a new language.

My teaching experience to date includes introductory and intermediate programming, including fundamental data structures and algorithms, and web development. I have taught each to undergraduate and postgraduate cohorts in face-to-face, hybrid, and online modes.