Rate My Professor Debra Donnelly

Associate Professor Debra Donnelly is an Honorary Associate Professor in Secondary HSIE Education at the School of Education, University of Newcastle, Australia. She holds a PhD in Pedagogy from Monash University, a Master of Arts and Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from the University of Newcastle, a Master of Education in Teacher Librarianship from Charles Sturt University, and a Graduate Certificate in the Practice of Tertiary Teaching from the University of Newcastle. Prior to her academic career, Donnelly served as a Secondary Head Teacher in the New South Wales Department of Education and Training from 1980 to 2004, where she taught History and Geography in Years 7-10, HSC Modern and Ancient History, Society and Culture, and Extension History. She also consulted for the NSW Board of Studies on School Certificate and Higher School Certificate examination boards and marked HSC exams in Ancient History and English. Since joining the University of Newcastle around 2005, she has progressed to Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, and Associate Professor roles, currently serving as Academic Director of Professional Experience and Program Convenor for the Bachelor of Teaching (Secondary)/Bachelor of Arts.

Donnelly's research centers on history education, the impact of film and media on historical consciousness, multimodality in film-based learning, virtual simulations like TeachLive and TeachReady for pre-service teacher support, global education, citizenship, and museums as educative resources. She is a founding member of the HERMES research network on historical experience, representation, memory, education, and society, and associate editor of the Q1-ranked journal Historical Encounters. Her work has garnered 564 citations according to Google Scholar. Awards include the 2016 FEDUA Early Career Fellowship ($15,000), 2008 Equity Research Fellowship for Teaching Relief ($22,239) and Research Grant ($4,520), and 2007 New Staff Grant ($1,500). Key publications feature books such as Meaning Making With Picture Books (2025, with H. Sharp), Authentic Contexts of Numeracy: Making Meaning across the Curriculum (2018), and Contesting and Constructing International Perspectives in Global Education (2015); chapters like 'Using a Mixed-Reality Micro-teaching Program to Support “at Risk” Pre-service Teachers' (2023) and 'Integrating filmic pedagogies into the teaching and learning cycle' (2019); and articles including 'The History Teacher as Public Historian' (2023).