This month's question:
Do you spot articles on leadership relevant to
science academics in Australia?
How about contributing to the Leadership
section of this SaMnet newsletter?
Join the special editor for our SoTL section,
Emma Bartle of UQ.
Job Description: Send two articles and short
blurbs to SaMnet each month. They
will be disseminated to the community.
Inquire at samnetaustralia@gmail.com.
2. Conferences & publication
Two discipline conferences are particularly
calling for contributions from science education – Abstracts due immediately
(June 27)
Both have expressed that they want more
education submissions. If you are in Physics or Chemistry and have research to
share, this is a great way to represent the Science and Maths Education
community. SaMnet will be making a submission to the AIP Congress.
Hong Kong Baptist University, 7-10
July 2014.
Let SaMnet HQ know if you are
attending. We will connect you
with other SaMnet Scholars.
Edith Cowan University, 9-11
July,
Interested in improving
experiments and lab experiences for your students? Know high school teachers
who are keen? Registration past due, June 14, but ...
4. SaMnet activity
SaMnet HQ
is making submissions to ACSME and the AIP congress. We intend to have a
network gathering at ACSME on the discipline day (October 1).
SaMnet Scholars
are also getting involved. In the last month Emma Bartle has joined the
newsletter editing team with contributions to the SoTL section and Nina
Fotinatos will also be involved in the near future.
SaMnet steering
committee member, Liz Johnson, is helping host the
upcoming ACDS Education Conference in Melbourne (June 30 - July 1). SaMnet
Scholars in Assoc Dean (and similar) roles will be in attendance.
5. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
(SoTL) (Edited by - Emma Bartle, UQ)
Bill Cerbin
SoTL is often outcomes-focussed – did my
teaching innovation result in better learning than the traditional method I had
been using previously? But what does that tell us about how the students did or
did not learn? The authors propose the focus of SoTL needs to shift and make
the learning process the object of inquiry, exploring how and why students
learn.
Elizabeth Marquis, Mick Healey, Michelle Vine
SoTL themes cover multiple disciplines,
providing potential for broader collaborations than discipline-based research.
The authors describe and evaluate an innovative, international, collaborative
writing group that was designed to build SoTL capacity across disciplines and
international borders.
6. Leadership insights (Edited
by Matt Hill & Will Rifkin, USyd)
Two articles calling on academic institutions
to develop better leadership pathways for women, both which also call on women
to be bold in seeking leadership opportunities. Has insights for both male and
female readers.
Kelly Ward (Washington
State) & Pamela L. Eddy (College of William and Mary)
It is argued that women only make up 29% of
full professors (USA) because some women, “lean back from the ladder of academic
progress, promotion and leadership because of a perception that advanced
positions of leadership are not open to women, and particularly women who hope
to make time for a family or life beyond work”. Find out what the authors think
about this perception.
Prof Carol Black
(Cambridge) & Aslya Islam (London School of Economics)
The statistics are even worse in the UK with
only 20% female professors nationally and just 15.3% at the elite Cambridge.
The system is improving, ”but women also have a part to play. They shouldn't walk away when they
realise the work that it takes to make it to the top.”
7. Initiative in Focus: This Month – Digital Explanations:
Explaining, Learning and Communicating with Student-created Digital Media |
A/Prof Garry Hoban (U of Wollongong)
In the last
12 months, Garry has been promoting science and science teacher education students to
engage with science content by creating digital media as innovative assessment
tasks to explain Science. His full day workshops at universities in each state
have been warmly received by academics and supported by a comprehensive website
that provides students with ideas, free instructions and resources for creating
digital media available at www.digiexplanations.com. The web site has had over
9,000 visits by individuals resulting in over 165,000 hits both nationally and
internationally.
A culminating activity will be a Science Film Festival (DigiXFest) to
be run at the end of first day of the ACSME, Monday 29th September
with drinks and food being served at the end of the last session from
5.15-6.15, then a showing of digital media finalists from 6.15-7.15 pm. ACSME
participants will vote to allocate $2,000 in cash prizes to students. Deadline for student entries is Monday 15th
September – click for film competition
details.
8. Classifieds
Wanted
Chemical
Education Research Associate, University of New South Wales.
An 18 month, full time position is available
working in the School of Chemistry to develop, implement and critically
evaluate a new model of skills-based assessment in Chemistry Laboratory Classes
at UNSW. Contact Prof Scott Kable for
more information.
Applications close 4th of July,
2014.
