At Burgmann Anglican School, our commitment to innovative learning and teaching is demonstrated by our esteemed staff members.
Get to know the stories behind the individuals that support our mission as we celebrate the diverse talents, experience and contributions of our staff.
Name: Suren Mendis
Position: Senior School Science Teacher
Subjects: Chemistry, Biology, Environmental Science
Qualifications: Bachelor of Medical Science, Graduate Diploma in Secondary Education and Teaching, Master’s in Science Communication – Educational/Instructional Technology, Doctor of Philosophy – Online Learning and Digital Literacy (Ongoing).
Suren began his journey with Burgmann back in 2011 while undertaking his Graduate Diploma in Secondary Education and Teaching.
In 2023, he was among nine Australians selected from a pool of nearly 300 applicants to receive the prestigious Education Perfect fellowship, supporting his PhD research on online learning and digital literacy.
Outside of Burgmann, Suren teaches chemistry extension classes at the Australian National University and develops content for "MeriSTEM," an online learning resource platform.
Suren is also the Deputy Director of the Australian Junior Science Olympiad and the teams he trained travelled internationally for the competition finals in 2022 and 2023, with one student winning gold and the five others winning silver.
BACKGROUND
Throughout his 13 years as part of the Burgmann community, Suren has continuously sought opportunities to learn and develop in his field. However, academia hasn’t always been his strong suit.
‘When I was in high school, I was shockingly bad at school,’ says Suren. ‘I actually failed chemistry and somehow five years later found myself giving chemistry lectures.’
Suren says his struggles with learning are what led him to teach as he explored different approaches to content material.
‘I needed to contextualise things in a more abstract manner and piece things together,’ he says. ‘I was thinking about how people’s minds work different and how you can take a particular concept and approach it in different ways.’
This led Suren to explore different approaches to learning as he began to understand the strategies that worked best for him.
‘I started with teaching and explaining concepts to friends and really enjoyed it.’
Suren’s high school journey was undertaken across multiple countries, including Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the United States and Australia.
‘I didn’t really know what the Australian school system was like,’ he says. ‘When I enrolled in teaching I kind of did it on a whim, so when I came to Burgmann for my first prac, I was insanely nervous.
‘I had some incredible mentor teachers who sort of reassured me and really galvanised that this is what I wanted to do.’
Now, Suren says he can’t imagine himself not being a teacher and plans to continue his relationship with Burgmann for many years to come.
‘This was ground zero for me,’ he says. ‘This is where I learnt in a lot of ways how to be a teacher.’
TEACHING APPROACH
Suren’s love of learning and teaching is clear through his innovative and creative strategies, which allow him to build strong relationships with his students and connect with his classes.
‘My teaching style is individualised for each class and specific students,’ he says, ‘Some of the breakthroughs I’ve had have been through encouraging them to look beyond high school – whether it’s through connecting them with people outside of school who can show them that there’s other possibilities or also showing them that it takes time to get there.’
One of these methods is the integration of games and complex concepts which stems from a research project that Suren completed while undertaking his master’s degree in science communication at ANU.
Gamified learning can assist in breaking down complex topics and is one of the ways that Suren keeps his lessons engaging.
‘We illustrate concepts through things like card games – showing a battle between the immune system and diseases,’ he says. ‘Or a board game for building ecosystems and looking at it from different perspectives.’
Another way Suren teaches complex concepts is through pop culture references.
‘I tend to draw a lot from pop culture and fiction as much as I can,’ he says. ‘I try to ground what we’re doing using those little anecdotes so students can associate the concepts with things they’ve already seen.’
CONFERENCES
Suren has presented at several conferences over the past few years, including at a conference of the Australian Science Teachers Association (CONASTA) in 2023 where he discussed links between university and high school, showcasing resources and activities to help bridge the gap in learning and teaching styles.
Suren spoke at CONASTA 2022 about flipped learning, which ‘flips’ the traditional teaching model.
‘It’s a specific teaching approach where students are exposed to content outside of class time, such as watching short videos to get their head around certain concepts, and they come into class and do active learning exercises and activities,’ he says. ‘It’s one way to avoid teaching too much content all at once.’
Last year, Suren ran a teacher training conference at the University of Canberra about the ways that the scientific process and design thinking (DT) process relate to each other.
‘The approaches we take in science and DT aren’t that different,’ he says. ‘They can actually feed each other.’
The conference explored the ways that different subject domains are interconnected.
Later this year, Suren is presenting at the Science Head Teachers Conference in NSW about the use of data-based activities in science teaching in preparation for the upcoming NSW curriculum changes.