Rate My Professor Tracy Treasure

Tracy Treasure is a Lecturer and Program Coordinator (Early Childhood) in the School of Education at The University of Notre Dame Australia, Fremantle campus. She holds a Bachelor of Education (Early Childhood Education) with Honours and is currently undertaking a PhD in the area of play in early childhood at the University of Notre Dame Australia. Tracy joined the university in 2011 as an early childhood lecturer and now coordinates the Bachelor of Education (Early Childhood and Care: 0-8 years), Graduate Certificate in Early Childhood, and Master of Education (Early Childhood) programs. Her prior career includes teaching roles in early childhood and primary settings, early learning centres as a classroom teacher, room leader, and 'Getting it Right Literacy Specialist'. She is a member of the Notre Dame RELATE (Researching Early Learning and Teacher Education) team, contributing to projects on teaching in early learning centres, teacher professional status, and the demise of play in early childhood settings. Her academic interests encompass child development, play and children's social and emotional wellbeing, play-based learning in Pre-primary and Year 1 school settings, play-based pedagogies, professional identity and teacher status, and the division between early childhood education and care.

Treasure's key publication is the co-authored book Learning through play: Creating a play-based approach within early childhood contexts (Oxford University Press, 2018), which received the 2019 Education Publishers Awards Australia (EPAA). She contributed several chapters to this volume, including 'Theories of play: Historical to contemporary', 'What is play?', 'Why play is the way in early childhood contexts', 'International perspectives on play-based approaches', and 'Diversity considerations in play'. Notable journal articles and proceedings include 'Education or care? Childcare or school? Pre-service teacher perspectives of teaching in the childcare sector' (Issues in Educational Research, 2021, with Robinson and O'Connor), 'Educator identities. Emerging issues within personal and professional identities: changes experienced by Australian pre-service teachers following professional exposure to educational practice within childcare settings' (Early Childhood Development and Care, 2015, with O'Connor, McGunnigle, and Davie), and ICERI proceedings such as 'Is play disappearing? Instances of no-play in children's neighbourhoods' (2017) and 'Child's play the developmental benefits of the play choices of modern children' (2017). Her conference presentations span local, national, and international events. Awards include the Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching (2017), Vice-Chancellor's Award for Initiatives that Enhance Student Learning (2016, RELATE team), and Australian Awards for University Teaching Citation for outstanding contributions to student learning (2019, RELATE team). Through her scholarship, Tracy Treasure influences early childhood education by aligning evidence with curriculum design and promoting collaboration.