Rate My Professor Peter Waterhouse

Dr. Peter Waterhouse serves as a Lecturer in the School of Education, Culture and Society within the Faculty of Education at Monash University. He earned his PhD from La Trobe University in 1999, with a dissertation titled Good Beginnings: A search for authenticity in adult education practice and identity. This qualitative study, nominated for an Academic Research Award, utilized arts-based methods to examine experiential learning and reflective practice across diverse settings including schools, universities, TAFE, and workplaces. Prior to his current role, Waterhouse was the founding Director of the National Centre of Literacy and Numeracy for Adults at the University of Waikato in New Zealand, a position he held until returning to Australia in 2012. Throughout his career, he has worked extensively as an adult educator, lecturer, manager, consultant, and researcher, focusing on adult learning, adult literacy, work, skills, and workplace change. His professional journey emphasizes the interplay between life experience, work, and learning, particularly in teacher education and critically reflective practice, or praxis.

Waterhouse's research agenda centers on reflective practice through self-study, narrative, and autoethnography; critical, creative, and compassionate pedagogy for learner empowerment; critical literacies, including digital literacies; and adult education for lifelong learning in community and workplace contexts. He pursues projects involving action-research, appreciative inquiry, and strengths-based practices to challenge the status quo and enhance equity, diversity, inclusion, health, and wellbeing, aligning with Monash Impact 2030 goals. Notable publications include co-editing Digital Empowerment for Refugee and Migrant Learners: Applying Strengths-Based Practice to Adult Education (Routledge, 2025); chapters such as Building digital resilience in migrant and refugee communities (2025); and articles like Exploring AI literacy practices and capabilities of adult EAL learners from migrant and refugee backgrounds (2026, Language Teaching Research), Conceptualizing student wellbeing in secondary education (2025, International Journal of Adolescence and Youth), and Exploring attitudes to generative AI in education for English as an additional language (EAL) adult learners (2025, ReCALL). Earlier contributions encompass Breathing Life into Training (1994), The ACE Experience: Pedagogies for life and employability (2004), Contradicting the Stereotype (2005), Working from Strengths (2008), and Creating Synergies (NCVER, 2006). He received a Best Paper Award in 2021 with collaborators Katrina Tour and Edwin Creely. Waterhouse specializes in sociology, history, and philosophy of education; qualitative methods; transforming teaching and learning; and educating for diversity.