Embedding career climate skills broadly into Australian degrees

One of the emerging barriers to climate action in Australia, and globally, is having enough people with the skills and interest to accelerate decarbonisation across the economy. While universities have a critical role to play in addressing these skills issues, many degrees are not currently geared towards developing a workforce suitably equipped to address climate change. Likewise, building the knowledge and skills necessary to address climate change - including understanding the challenges and opportunities for innovation - are often too narrowly defined or considered. Growing breadth of conception will be key to successfully nurturing future leaders in this regard

SCIENCE STUDENT REFLECTION ON INDIGENOUS CULTURAL COMPETENCY LEARNING

Teaching Indigenous cultural competency has become imperative in recognising and respecting Indigenous people and their culture in the Western world (Page, Trugett, & Bodkin-Andrews, 2019). A sustainable approach to education and knowledge must ensure all knowledges are valued and the knowledge systems behind the longer surviving cultures in the world deserve significant attention. Through written reflections, this investigation analysed the learnt cultural competency of 29 students enrolled in an Indigenous science unit at Monash University. The data was qualitatively analysed using NVivo 12 to produce a code book as a summary of recurring reflection themes. Each reflection was isolated into three sections: Initial reaction, perception and plans. Students were able to deeply reflect and process their cultural competency through the evaluation of what they were taught, identification of gaps in their prior knowledge and planning to seek further information to overcome incompetence. The students were able to emotively respond, process and engage with the content which highlighted a deeper level of processing and reflexivity. REFERENCE Page, S., Trugett, M., & Bodkin-Andrews, G. (2019). Creating a degree-focused pedagogical framework to guide Indigenous graduate attributes curriculum development. Higher Education, 78, 1-15

CAREER DEVELOPMENT LEARNING – DOES GENDER IMPACT RESULTS?

Career development learning (CDL) can help students understand their future workplace, including; employment options, how to prepare for finding a job and the keys features of relevant industries. CDL can mean students get to a job that suits them faster, and more often, and it can result in students feeling more satisfied with their careers. CDL also helps prepare students for other experiences like Internships or Industry project units. Using a self-perceived employability questionnaire (Rothwell & Arnold, 2007) we assessed how students perceived internal and external aspects of their employability before and after a 12 weeks class (N = 296). One dimension of significance was the change in confidence in their own skills. While initial analyses did not reveal any changes in confidence over the course of the subject, ad hoc analyses revealed that this was because male and female students had significantly different responses. Confidence is a particularly important factor in employability (Jackson et al., 2019). I will discuss the way in which students experience the confidence in skills aspects of this CDL class differently based on gender. I will focus on the quantitative responses and add depth to the finding by also discussing the qualitative results. REFERENCES Jackson, D., Fleming, J., & Rowe, A. (2019). Enabling the Transfer of Skills and Knowledge across Classroom and Work Contexts. Vocations and Learning, 12(3), 459–478. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12186-019-09224-13 Rothwell, A., & Arnold, J. (2007). Self-perceived employability: Development and validation of a scale. Personnel Review, 36(1), 23–41. https://doi.org/10.1108/0048348071071670

INSIGHTS FROM A CAREER DEVELOPMENT LEARNING INTERVENTION: THE IMPACT OF STUDENT MAJOR ON PERCEPTIONS OF EMPLOYABILITY

Graduate employability has been an important and ongoing issue for universities, with concerns increasing as Australia faces recession. This prompted us to investigate the impacts of a semester-long Career Development Learning (CDL) intervention designed for STEM students and delivered at Monash University. Utilising a mixed-method approach, we measured students’ (n = 293) ‘Self Perceived Employability’ (SPE) and followed up with open-ended questions related to valued skills and future concerns. Collectively this allowed us to understand student career awareness and perceptions of future success. We found that students’ perception of the value of their degree and the demand of their skills varied with their field of study. For instance, students majoring in Chemistry and Mathematics perceived their skills to be low in demand within the labour force and were highly concerned with ‘unemployment or under employment’. In contrast, students majoring in Medicine perceived their skills to be highly desirable, with ‘admission to further study’ being of most concern. CDL interventions are an important tool to help guide students through to employability. Our results highlight the need to tailor CDL interventions to specific fields to address the various concerns of students and to facilitate their future success

Increasing engagement: adding industry and real-life contexts to your labs and workshops

BACKGROUND There is a push to increase the connection of teaching and learning materials to the real world (aka context-based learning or CBL) (Pilot & Bulte, 2006), increasing engagement by having the student work on real world examples as opposed to a theoretical focus. The original desired theories are present but within the lesson, rather than the sole focus (Gilbert, 2006). If the context within the lessons is industry focused, CBL can also improve workforce readiness as students are more familiar with workplace issues, processes, and communication styles. Connection to industry can be achieved through existing or purposely developed relationships between industry and higher education, or through using those external contexts without participation of a partner.   WORKSHOP We will provide training on how we approach both the industry focused (partnered and unpartnered) as well as the real-life focused version of CBL in the laboratory and workshops, respectively. As part of the two-hour session, we will first unpack several examples undertaken by the facilitators. During the final hour, we will help people brainstorm CBL ideas for their classes, up to and including helping them plan how to find industry linked resources or contacts into industry for help in developing the lessons.   REFERENCES Gilbert, J. K. (2006). On the Nature of “Context” in Chemical Education. International Journal of Science Education, 28(9), 957-976. https://doi.org/10.1080/09500690600702470 Pilot, A., & Bulte, A. M. W. (2006). Why Do You “Need to Know”? Context‐based education. International Journal of Science Education, 28(9), 953-956. https://doi.org/10.1080/0950069060070246

Understanding the impact of careers focused classes on undergraduate science students

Bringing context-based learning into the university exposes students as to how and why the outside world uses science. Overtly training students to understand how their transferable skills are needed, and how transferable skills allow them to make the most of their discipline knowledge/skills, is the next step. In Science faculties around Australia a tension still exists between the purpose of universities in this space. Through mixed methods work I’m investigating the synergistic value of giving students an understanding of Australian workplaces, by bringing them closer to their future employers while they study. This includes overt careers skills training, internship programs and “students meet industry” sessions. I will present how a career skills unit/class increases a student’s understanding of the value of their degree and their employment options. This is a win for the university, the students and the workforce in general. Through reflections I will also present insights into how students can be profoundly affected by having the professional world of world explained to them. As research intensive universities grapple with their role in the intersection between education and employability, these insights can ensure we act on pedagogically sound data, not trends

How mainstream science students experience learning about Indigenous science

A mixed methods approach was used to understand the experience of mainstream science students completing an elective interdisciplinary science unit “Indigenous Science: Science through the eyes of Australia’s First Peoples”. Post an introductory two weeks focused on Indigenous cultural competency in a science context, we looked at student reflections on learning (n = 72). We combined this with a quantitative instrument to look at students’ impressions on Indigenous issues pre/post the unit as an indication of changes in attitudes (Bodkin-Andrews, Page, & Trudgett, 2019). Lastly, this was paired with an instrument to evaluate the presence of Indigenous opinions, works and voices that the students perceived to be part of the class. Analysis of the reflections shows a high number of students including negative emotions in their reflections. We also see a high number of students planning to become more familiar with Indigenous issues and literature in order to improve their understanding. Often this is coupled with an understanding that they need to upskill before interacting with community in order to have a higher baseline competency on Indigenous issues. We will present the detailed interactions of themes across the different aspects of the reflection and what it means for those working to teach in this space. REFERENCE Bodkin-Andrews, G., Page, S., & Trudgett, M. (2019). Working towards accountability in embedding Indigenous studies: Evidence from an Indigenous Graduate Attribute evaluation instrument. Australian Journal of Education, 63(2), 232-260. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0004944119863927

Intrinsic up-regulation of 2-AG favors an area specific neuronal survival in different in vitro models of neuronal damage

BACKGROUND: The endocannabinoid 2-arachidonoyl glycerol (2-AG) acts as a retrograde messenger and modulates synaptic signaling e. g. in the hippocampus. 2-AG also exerts neuroprotective effects under pathological situations. To better understand the mechanism beyond physiological signaling we used Organotypic Entorhino-Hippocampal Slice Cultures (OHSC) and investigated the temporal regulation of 2-AG in different cell subsets during excitotoxic lesion and dendritic lesion of long range projections in the enthorhinal cortex (EC), dentate gyrus (DG) and the cornu ammonis region 1 (CA1). RESULTS: 2-AG levels were elevated 24 h after excitotoxic lesion in CA1 and DG (but not EC) and 24 h after perforant pathway transection (PPT) in the DG only. After PPT diacylglycerol lipase alpha (DAGL) protein, the synthesizing enzyme of 2-AG was decreased when Dagl mRNA expression and 2-AG levels were enhanced. In contrast to DAGL, the 2-AG hydrolyzing enzyme monoacylglycerol lipase (MAGL) showed no alterations in total protein and mRNA expression after PPT in OHSC. MAGL immunoreaction underwent a redistribution after PPT and excitotoxic lesion since MAGL IR disappeared in astrocytes of lesioned OHSC. DAGL and MAGL immunoreactions were not detectable in microglia at all investigated time points. Thus, induction of the neuroprotective endocannabinoid 2-AG might be generally accomplished by down-regulation of MAGL in astrocytes after neuronal lesions. CONCLUSION: Increase in 2-AG levels during secondary neuronal damage reflects a general neuroprotective mechanism since it occurred independently in both different lesion models. This intrinsic up-regulation of 2-AG is synergistically controlled by DAGL and MAGL in neurons and astrocytes and thus represents a protective system for neurons that is involved in dendritic reorganisation

An Evidence-Based Approach to Employability Curricula and Transferable Skill Development: A Mixed Methods Study

Within Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), there is cross cultural evidence of gaps in transferrable skills between new graduates’ capabilities and employers’ expectations. These gaps hinder graduates’ ability to obtain employment. Herein we report the impact of an evidence-based approach to closing skills gaps in senior STEM students based on their self-perceived employability. A capstone-style, for-credit elective module was developed for STEM students based on the skills gaps found in prior research. The impact of this intervention was measured utilising a mixed-method design. Students’ self-perceived employability pre- and post- module completion were measured, along with post-module reflections collected via a series of open-ended questions. Overall, the module had a positive impact on student self-perceived employability, with the greatest impact in the areas of ‘awareness of opportunity’, ‘perceptions of future success’, and ‘confidence in skills’. A post hoc analysis indicated significant increases in post-module completion ‘confidence in skills’ for women, an important insight given the gender-based issues in career progress and retention in STEM. The qualitative analysis suggested that students highly valued the opportunity to develop job application and transferable skills. The results are discussed in the light of the importance of evidence-based, curriculum-embedded interventions in guiding students to employment

TEACHING FOR DIVERSITY AND EQUITY IN STEM: IN PRACTICE

Diverse teams more effectively solve problems (Reynolds & Lewis, 2017), and are therefore critical for STEM research and innovation. Yet, tertiary STEM cohorts still do not represent our diverse Australian society (Fisher, Thompson & Brookes, 2020). Despite targeted efforts providing access for a broader demographic (Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, 2015; TEQSA), there remains significant participation gaps for students from traditionally marginalised cohorts (students with a disability, gender diverse, or culturally and linguistically diverse students) (Lowrie, Downes & Leonard, 2017). Providing greater access will not rectify this imbalance if the learning experiences universities offer exclude or limit the success of these students. The global pandemic has disrupted higher education; with significant impact on student wellbeing and the potential to exacerbate inequities (Dodd et al., 2021). However, as STEM educators this disruption can be an opportunity to reform our STEM curricula, not just for new delivery modes, but for diverse student cohorts. Catering for diversity is not a new concept in tertiary education. It has been core to transition pedagogy, which ask that “academics…leverage the curriculum and its delivery…to make equitably explicit the implicit rules and expectations of disciplinary engagement and success.” (Kift, 2015). The educational research is arguably done, but as academics, do we have the capacity to implement equitable and inclusive STEM education? This workshop will make the implicit explicit as together we discuss, deconstruct, and reconstruct ‘standard’ tertiary STEM classes to give participants practical experience applying the principles of inclusive teaching through curriculum design. REFERENCES Dodd, R. H., Dadaczynski, K., Okan, O., McCaffery, K. J., & Pickles, K. (2021). Psychological wellbeing and academic experience of University students in Australia during COVID-19. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(3), 866. Fisher, C. R., Thompson, C. D., & Brookes, R. H. (2020). Gender differences in the Australian undergraduate STEM student experience: a systematic review. Higher Education Research & Development, 39(6), 1155-1168 Kift S. (2015). A decade of transition pedagogy: a quantum leap in conceptualising the first year experience. HERDSA Review of Higher Education, 2, 51-86 Lowrie, T., Downes, N., & Leonard, S. (2017). STEM Education for all young Australians. A Bright spots stem learning hub foundation paper for SVA, in partnership with Samsung. University of Canberra STEM Education Research Centre. Reynolds, A. & Lewis D. (2017, March 30). Teams solve problems faster when they’re more cognitively diverse - Harvard Business Review. Retrieved June 4, 2021, from https://hbr.org/2017/03/teams-solve-problems-faster-when-theyre-more-cognitively-diverse Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency. (2015). Higher Education Standards Framework (Threshold Standards)