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This month's question:
Met with your project’s critical friend recently? They need to get your reflections on factors influencing
distributed leadership in your project. Please, catch up with them! Your insights will inform publications on how
‘distributed leadership’ can be supported.
Many from the SaMnet community are part of
projects awarded funding for the Enhancing the Training of Mathematics and
Science Teachers Grants 2013. Congratulations to all who are involved.
2. Conferences & publication
Australian Conf. on Science and Maths Educ.
2013: “Students in transition – The Learner’s Journey”. Venue: ANU & Uni of Canberra. Submissions
deadline has passed.
ACSME will begin with a discipline
and workshop day on the 19th
of September - morning workshops, SaMnet gathering (12n) and meetings of Biomedical,
Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics and
Physics networks.
ELSEVIER
Journal Finder – Looking to
publish but unsure about which journal? This resource matches your content to a
range of journals. It displays open
access options, publication speeds and impact factors. Try it.
Past: HERDSA 2013 Conference
– 1-4 July 2013 at Auckland Institute of Technology. SaMnet presented to new
faces, packed room – then lunch with SaMnet Scholars and old friends.
Future: ESERA
(European Science Education Research Assoc.) – September 2-7, Cyprus. Members
of SaMnet will present. Arrange to connect, contact SaMnet.
ACSME will be our next main
gathering; there is a SaMnet Scholars meeting in the program from 12-1 on
Thursday 19 September at the U of Canberra.
Match up:
Bring a colleague attending
ACSME to the SaMnet meeting on 19 September at 12n, U of Canberra. .
4. SaMnet activity
Final SaMnet survey:
It is not too late – SaMnet scholars can still
complete our final online survey on Leadership and SoTL. Lost the link? Email,
and we will send it to you straight away.
Steering Committee:
The SaMnet steering committee connected on the
22/8 to discuss data analysis and publication strategies as well as the future
for SaMnet. Committee members are your projects’ critical friends. They are contacting teams to discuss the
influences of SaMnet, your institution, and individuals on the leadership
development in the team. That
information will help future ‘capacity building’ efforts. (See this newsletter’s opening
question.)
5. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
(SoTL)
Time to
Decide – The Ambivalence of the World of Science Toward Education Nature Education Vikram Savkar and
Jillian Lokere.
Note: This
was in last month’s newsletter, but many missed it – a must read!
“Most top-level universities - despite having a
publicly stated mission of education - direct more funding, awards and job
security to outstanding researchers than to outstanding teachers.”
The education of future scientists is undeniably
an important issue. How can we enable universities to give it a higher priority?
Charisma
Doesn’t Count – Students don’t learn more from Charismatic Lecturers Times Higher Education Chris Parr
The
argument is supported by the esteemed Eric Mazur of Harvard University commenting,
"The hard work has to be done by the learner - there's not much the
instructor can do to make the neuroconnections necessary for learning." The
article addresses the promise and perils
of MOOCS, as well.
6. Leadership insights
Contains what you - as a ‘distributed leader’ -
can do for your colleagues. An article shared over 10,000 times.
Seems strange that this title follows the
previous article – it is about reviewing and reviewers’ comments. Can be
applied to your academic career as both an author and a reviewer. Ever realised that reviewing is an
opportunity for leadership? (Warning: Taylor Swift does get a mention.)
7. Project in Focus: Better Judgement
Lisa
Schmidt & Lambert Schuwirth, Flinders University
The OLT-funded project ‘Better Judgement’ focuses on
human judgement, especially in viva voce
and practice-based examinations. Judgement biases are incomplete (or incorrect)
representations in the assessor’s mind of what has occurred during the assessment. So learning to manage them is important in
developing the expertise of assessors. However, biases are very hard if not
impossible to train away. A more viable
approach is to focus assessor training on recognising, naming and managing
biases to prevent them from unduly influencing the assessor’s
judgement.
We have developed an assessor
training package containing video presentations for the theoretical
background, vignettes of assessment situations, and practice recognition in
well-defined situations. There are also
real-life YouTube clips for
ill-defined situations, activities to apply all this to the participants’
professional contexts, and a compendium of practical strategies to prevent
biases from unduly influencing one’s overall judgement. The project has demonstrated
a need in this area. It has provided a
deeper understanding of how biases individually influence assessors’ judgements
and how they interact with each other, as well as how such effects can be
counteracted. The resources are available at www.flinders.edu.au/better-judgement.
Share with colleagues.
Contact the project team to learn more.
8. Classifieds
Want to be recognised as a ‘Science Digital
Media Leader’? Contact Assoc Prof Garry
Hoban (ghoban@uow.edu.au) to submit an
expression of interest. He is looking
for science academics and our colleagues in science teacher education who
assign students to create animations, videos, podcasts, etc. as part of their
science learning. You will get to share
your best work, publication opportunities, and extended links with
colleagues.
Contact samnetaustralia@gmail.com if you
are seeking contributions to – or participation in - your own OLT project or
other initiative. We can put your
advertisement here.
