Rate My Professor Rachel Forgasz

Dr Rachel Forgasz is an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in the School of Curriculum Teaching & Inclusive Education in the Faculty of Education at Monash University. Prior to her academic career, she worked as a high school teacher of senior English and as a performance installation and exhibition coordinator at a St Kilda nightclub. She has been with Monash University since approximately 2010, marking over a decade of contributions to teacher education. Forgasz has held visiting academic positions at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium in 2018 and at Montclair State University in the United States in 2016. Her research and teaching emphasize teacher education, exploring embodied teaching, learning, and reflection; the role of teacher emotion; drama education; self-study of professional practice; and teaching for climate justice. This work supports United Nations Sustainable Development Goals including Quality Education (SDG 4), Gender Equality (SDG 5), and Climate Action (SDG 13). She facilitates drama-based explorations of embodied emotions in teacher education contexts and collaborates on innovative pedagogies for pre-service teachers.

Forgasz has earned recognition for her excellence in teaching and research, including the Dean's Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning in 2014, the Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence in Outstanding Author Contribution in 2015, the Vice-Chancellor's Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning in 2015, and the Monash Education Academy Fellowship in 2016, a competitive fellowship. She has served as a peer reviewer for the Australian Journal of Teacher Education in 2018 and Teaching and Teacher Education in 2017, and as a member of the Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority in 2017. With 41 research outputs, her key publications include 'Possibilities and problems of using drama to engage with First Nations content and concepts in education: a systematic review' (2023, with Hradsky), 'Resistance as commitment. A reflective case study of teacher professionalism in neoliberal times' (2023, with Kelchtermans and Berry), 'Game on! Collaborative research and resistance through play' (2022, with Grimmett), 'The in/finite game of life: playing in the academy in the face of life and death' (2021, with Grimmett), and ''It’s got to be a journey': learning to teach First Nations content and concepts in the Australian drama classroom' (2021, with Hradsky et al.). Her scholarship has accumulated 802 citations on Google Scholar, with an h-index of 16.