Dr Kevin Laws AM

Prior to retiring in July 2013, Kevin Laws coordinated the MEd (Educational Management and Leadership) program in the Faculty of Education and Social Work at The University of Sydney.
 

A project initially funded by the Australian Government and the University of Sydney in 2010 led to establishment of the Developing Educational Professionals in Southeast Asia (DEPISA) network, which Kevin still convenes. The network has grown from 18 members from five universities in five countries to more than 200 members from 12 universities in eight Asian countries.  He has organised 15 international conferences for DEPISA, including 2 held on Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2019, Kevin was invited to join the International College, Thaksin University, Thailand.  He mentors a Thaksin University staff member with whom he is jointly supervising a scholarship student from Vietnam in the field of sustainable development and global citizenship. 

Appointed as a Member of the General Division of the Order of Australia, 2023, "For significant service to professional learning for tertiary educators in Southeast Asia"

Special recognition for service, Schools of Education and Foreign Languages, Can Tho University, Vietnam 2016 and 2017

Developing Educational Professionals in Southeast Asia (DEPISA) Collaborative International Research Project (CIRP) investigating the use of constructive alignment as a means of curriculum and course development. This grew out of a series of workshops in Vietnam and Thailand in November 2017. This project culminated in the publication of a book An Integrated Constructive Alignment Approach to Course Design edited by Kevin Laws. Eighteen DEPISA members from Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, China and Indonesia contributed to this publication. 

Investigating higher-education students’ understanding and commitment to the concept of global citizenship and sustainability. This project developed partly from a former PhD candidate’s research topic and is now part of the focus of a PhD student at Thaksin University, Thailand I am supervising. 

Kevin supervised more than 30 doctoral theses between 1979 and 2016, and continues to with the supervision of research students in the fields of educational management and leadership and professional learning.

He is currently supervising a Vietnamese scholarship student who is undertaking his PhD studies at Thaksin University, Thailand.