Rate My Professor Gillian Busch

Associate Professor Gillian Busch serves as Head of Program for the Bachelor of Education (Early Childhood) and Master of Teaching (Early Childhood) in the School of Education and the Arts at CQUniversity, Rockhampton North. A registered early childhood teacher with experience teaching early years in Queensland schools and preschools, she holds a Diploma in Teaching, Bachelor of Education, Graduate Diploma in Early Childhood Education, Master of Education in Early Childhood Education, and a PhD. Her PhD on The Social Orders of Family Mealtime received the Early Childhood Australia Doctoral Thesis Award in 2012. She was also awarded the De Gruyter Poster Award at the International Conference on Conversation Analysis in 2010 for her presentation Multiparty talk during family breakfast.

Busch's research specializations encompass young children and celebrations, how families use Skype or FaceTime to support interaction, and social orders of family mealtime. She coordinates a number of courses in the Bachelor of Education program and is accredited to supervise higher degree research candidates in specialist studies in education and education systems. Her contributions to scholarship include co-authoring the article Children's transitions to school: 'so what about the parents'? in 2017 with Grant Webb and Bruce Knight, the book chapter Reducing the marginalisation of children: Relational knowledge production and the power of collaboration in 2015 with Ali Black and Marion Hayes, GTPA as enabler: Review, renewal and evidence of preservice teachers' assessment practices in 2021, and STEM education: What about VET qualified early childhood educators? in 2016 with Linda Pfeiffer and others. As Head of Early Childhood Education, she has led efforts to host the Reggio Emilia-inspired exhibition Mosaic of Marks, Words, Material in Rockhampton in 2025, collaborated on STEM playground projects with Education Queensland in 2024, and supported student initiatives including playground renovations in Cambodia.