1. Issue 9 of SaMnet’s monthly newsletter
Happy
New Year from the team in SaMnet HQ!
Listen to the newsletter? Now available in audio as a podcast.
This month's
question:
What are you going to continue
to do this year – in your teaching or in persuading your colleagues -- that you
tried for the first time last year?
Congratulations!
The Australian Awards for Teaching Excellence -
Early Career honour was received in November by SaMnet Scholar: Jessica
Vanderlelei. She is a biochemist at
Griffith’s Gold Coast campus who has implemented a range of novel teaching
strategies and documented their impact.
Take
a squiz at the awards list to see if anyone has done
something relevant to your interests.
Considering applying? Review assessors’ comments on the application pool,
and ask Jessica, Roy Tasker, ... , or a member of the SaMnet steering committee
(some have been assessors).
2. Conferences & publication
This
special issue will focus on outcomes and insights from your SaMnet projects.
Abstracts
are due today, 18 January 2013. You will
be forgiven for submitting by Tuesday, 22 January. Follow the link for a PDF
Call for Papers, and contact the editors if you want to be included.
Perth Teaching and Learning
Forum 2013
– 7-8 February @ Murdoch University.
ASELL National Science
Workshop –
2-5 April 2013 at The University of Sydney
EOIs for submission of
experiments due 25 January 2013
Registrations due 5 March 2013
PDF flyer for the workshop
ASELL Schools Science
Workshop –
26 April 2013 at SHORE School, North Sydney, NSW
Do
you know a school teacher interested in improving science experiments and lab experiences
for high school students? Pass on this
information about the 2013 ASELL Schools Science Workshop.
EOIs for submission of
experiments due 15 February 2013
Registrations due 5 April 2013
Past: 2nd Australian Tertiary Geosciences
Teaching workshop
January 16-17, 2013 @ James
Cook University
Future: Leadership Development Workshops in February 2013
February
4 –
Melbourne workshop @ La Trobe University
February
5 –
Adelaide workshop @ Flinders University
February
6 – Perth
workshop @ Curtin University
February
11 -- Sydney workshop @ U of Sydney
February 15 -- Brisbane workshop @
Griffith University.
Have a colleague with leadership potential? We have some open seats!
As part of the SaMnet workshops in capital cities,
OLT Fellow Liz Johnson will address SaMnet scholars and others in the wider
community to share plans and garner input on the proposal Centre. Liz will also
present at the Perth T&L forum on 7-8 February.
Match up: Dan Mallet and Deb
Jackson - with your experience in maths and statistics education - contact
Leigh Findlay and Peter Dunn of U of Sunshine Coast. Leigh and Peter are developing an effort to
investigate and improve statistics abilities of Honours and Higher Research
Degree students.
4. SaMnet activity
An
article on SaMnet has been published in the Australian
Journal of Education in Chemistry. Have a read on how your SaMnet
engagement is collectively developing the future of Australia’s academic
teaching in science and maths.
Project
Updates – Poster & Letter to Your Dean
Thank
you to teams who have replied to the draft posters that we developed. Please
send corrections, suggestions and updates to the letters and posters. We will ‘post’ them to your Dean soon.
5. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL)
What Might Help a Pretty Good Teacher Become a Great
Teacher – Craig Nelson
We have many good teachers in
the SaMnet community, how can good teachers develop into great teachers who see
results almost all the time?
Why Should You Publish Your Best Teaching Ideas – Craig Nelson
SaMnet encourages the sharing
of your ideas, in particular through publication. If Craig Nelson’s words
inspire (and inform) you, submit an abstract to the IJISME special issue on SaMnet projects. They are due TODAY! (Click for details)
6. Leadership insights
This readable article presents
a useful framework of elements that stop us from doing what we would like to do;
it seems well founded on psychological constructs.
Forgive the author for the trite
format for addressing negative thinking that ends the article.
Short and provides a good
reminder about the people around us whom we can learn from. Also, you could be one of these mentor
types.
7. ‘Team’ in Focus: Changing the Game - The Australian
Council of Deans of Science (ACDS) National Centre for Teaching and Learning
for Science and Mathematics. Liz Johnson, La Trobe University.
We are beginning
the new year by sharing from the efforts of OLT Fellow Liz Johnson in
developing the proposed ACDS T&L Centre.
That is the focus of her upcoming talks. See the flyer for
details.
Faculties teaching science and mathematics need to
shift their expectations and support of renewal to achieve broad scale
improvement in teaching practice. The sector is developing a rich network of
groups and individuals collaborating to improve teaching practice. These efforts include discipline and
leadership networks, national projects and emergence of national leaders in
learning and teaching. Recently, the Australian Council of Deans of Science
(ACDS) began work toward a National Centre for Teaching and Learning for
science and mathematics.
The new Centre will be a clearinghouse for sharing effective
models for organizational change and curriculum development. It will focus the
energies of learning and teaching leaders onto change at Faculty level by
constructing good practice guides providing distilled advice for teaching and
learning. The Centre will draw on the experience of learning and teaching
leaders, science faculties and associated discipline groups to offer
authoritative advice to Universities and external bodies.
The ACDS Centre will be available to the sector
through its website, and it will link existing groups, projects and leaders.
The Centre website will (a) house the good practice guides, which are to be
commissioned by the Centre, and (b) facilitate a practice exchange, which supports
dissemination of good ideas between disciplines. The ACDS Centre will also
provide timely advice for the ACDS on teaching and learning.
In the February 2013 sessions in capital cities, attendees will be
invited to contribute their ideas and views to make the new ACDS Centre as
relevant as possible.
Liz Johnson – Liz
is the Associate Dean Academic in the Faculty of Science, Technology and
Engineering at La Trobe University. She
leads curriculum renewal in the Faculty. Major projects include La Trobe's
Design for Learning project, which embeds graduate capabilities into a renewed
curriculum across the Faculty, and the Pathways in Science project, which is a
major review and development of courses. Liz trained as a plant biochemist and
contributes to teaching in foundation biochemistry at La Trobe. Liz's current
research interests are in the scholarship of teaching and
learning. Current research projects focus on strategies for curriculum
development in the sciences, quantitative literacy support mechanisms and
teaching scientific inquiry. Liz is also active in a number of
national initiatives in science and maths in higher education funded by
the Office for Learning and Teaching (DISSRTE). She is a
member of the steering committee for the SaMnet leadership
project, the VIBEnet (Vision and Innovation in Biology Education)
project, and is the evaluator for the Transitions in Biology project. She was
co-investigator on the recent ALTC project exploring scientific inquiry skills in biosciences.
8. Classifieds
Spaces open for your
colleagues with leadership potential in SaMnet’s February workshops:
February 4 – Melbourne workshop @ La
Trobe University
February
5 –
Adelaide workshop @ Flinders University
February
6 – Perth
workshop @ Curtin University
February
11 -- Sydney workshop @ U of Sydney
February 15 -- Brisbane workshop @
Griffith University.
Many thanks!
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