Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/63421
Motivational Speaker Duane Varan Foundation Chair in New Media Murdoch University Perth, Australia For Duane Varan, the formula is simple: A good teacher recognizes and releases student potential. "One of the things that has amazed me is that no mat- ter how hard I push, I can't seem to reach a barrier in terms of what students are capable of," says Varan, who last year won the Australian Prime Minister's Award for University Teacher of the Year, as well as the Australian Teaching Award for Economics, Business, and Related Studies. Motivating students to do well makes up about 80 percent of his job as an educator, Varan believes. "Motivation is what separates a teacher from a PowerPoint presentation," he says. "Many of our social statistics are drawn from the field of agronomy, where you can take a sample of corn and draw all sorts of conclu- sions based on that sam- ple. In a lot of ways, people might be similar to corn; but you can't really motivate an ear of corn. You can motivate students." One way to motivate students is to create a sense of community and culture in the classroom, no matter how big or how small the class is. In the past, when he has taught classes of 550 students, Varan embraced creative opportunities and economies of scale. For photo illustrations by Randy Mays BizEd NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2002 29