Sydney Network of University Science Educators (SNUSE): I must have dozed off!

SNUSE was formed in 2004 to facilitate collaboration between academics from University of New South Wales, The University of Sydney, University of Technology Sydney, University of Western Sydney and Macquarie University interested in learning and teaching. While this community of practice was energetic and successful in its aims in its early stages, it is now in much need of reinvigoration. We propose an "ideas exchange" and invite anyone interested in re-energising SNUSE. Feedback from the survey of SNUSE members last year indicated: 1) that a forum such as Uniserve is appropriate for a relaunch of this network, and 2) that devising strategic ways forward to develop our education research are important to the group. Topics for discussion will include laboratory teaching, including peer reviewed laboratory exercises, and professional development of sessional teaching staff, features of a recent meeting of ADEs from around Australia. Through this workshop we hope that we can re-engage existing members, recruit new members to SNUSE, fostering a new wave of collaboration in tertiary education in science in Sydney and identify ways to improve collaboration. Background information about SNUSE can be found at http://www2.science.unsw.edu.au/guide/slatig/snuse.htm

How does a high school outreach program engage our future scientists?

The Secondary School Enrichment Program (SSEP) is one of the outreach initiatives developed in the Faculty of Science, The University of New South Wales (UNSW). In the face of declining enrolments in the enabling sciences, the program seeks to foster a culture of academic generosity by bringing our current and future scientists together to participate in authentic scientific research. Developed jointly with a local, non-selective but high performing secondary school, the SSEP aims to draw talented students into university science degree programs, particularly in the enabling science disciplines. The SSEP provides secondary school students with an insight into university campus life and how research is conducted via their participation in a research project, under the mentorship of science PhD students. Since its inception three years ago, the program has obtained consistently positive feedback from the participants. However, in order to better understand the benefits of such a program, this paper investigates the program’s perceived educational benefits for these students through pre- and post-program surveys. The program’s effectiveness will be defined in terms of (a) students’ interest in science; (b) providing an authentic scientific experience, (c) introduction to campus life, and (d) increased interest in tertiary study, tertiary study of science and study at UNSW. Here, we share our experiences in developing and coordinating the program, and evaluating its success in achieving the above objectives. Discussion will focus on exploring the usefulness of such programs to reinvigorate interest in tertiary study in science, and the feasibility of expanding the program

Science without Borders: students’ perceptions of international exchange

Scientists view their disciplines as being practiced collaboratively with discussion and debate ignoring national borders. Clearly the international arena cannot be understated for our practice of research and its importance to infuse the global nature of science into science education. In an exchange program developed between the Faculties of Science at an Asian university (NUS) and an Australian university (UNSW), students were provided an opportunity to study science in another University, in a foreign country. To define the educational benefits of the exchange program, we obtained responses from UNSW and NUS science students, through pre- and post-program questionnaires, regarding their perceptions of the program and their motivations for joining the program. Students from both Universities appreciated participating in the program and found it met their expectations, with “development of inter and intrapersonal and self management skills” and “learning more about the host country’s culture, wildlife and environment” being most prominent. However, the two cohorts differed in their sense of the level of integration of the exchange program into their science degrees. UNSW students view Science without Borders (SwoB) as sitting outside their core curriculum whereas the NUS students view their Australian experience as very much a part of their degree program. This means that there is a mismatch between the perceptions of the students in the SWoB program and the way science is practiced. This paper provides background to the SWoB program, an analysis of the student experience as well as a critique of the current ‘global positioning’ of higher education in the sciences, as we grapple with increasing ‘global literacy’ in science

Using Threshold Concepts to generate a new understanding of teaching and learning Biology

Students come to tertiary institutions with misconceptions of key concepts in the disciplines they are studying. Their misconceptions commonly relate to conceptually difficult or troublesome knowledge (Perkins 1999) and can be: incomplete, contradictory, stable and highly resistant to change and remain intact despite repeated instruction at successively higher levels, being perhaps reinforced by teachers and textbooks (Driver 1983; Driver, Guesne and Tiberghien, 1985; Gabel 1994). For sometime, we have known that a range of concepts in Biology are conceptually difficult e.g. biochemical pathways, evolution and genetics (Brown 1995; Ross and Tronson 2007, Taylor 2006, 2008), but whether these are the ‘threshold concepts’ of (Meyer and Land 1995) is a question that needs to be explored further. We propose an alternative perspective where threshold crossing can be envisaged more productively as a cognitive process with students transported across a conceptual chasm or threshold. Misconceptions may then lie with an underlying ‘cognitive threshold’ and not a ‘threshold concept’ (Ross et al 2008). This current ALTC funded collaborative project involves three Australian universities and aims to identify the cognitive processes which underlie difficult Biological concepts; develop intervention strategies to improve students’ framework of conceptual understanding, in one or more related concept areas (that is, to help the students cross a conceptual threshold); test whether students can subsequently transfer this thinking process to aid their understanding of other similarly difficult concepts (that is, to see if they have learnt how to cross unfamiliar thresholds). In this paper we present the preliminary results of a survey which asked biology academics (both nationally and internationally) to identify troublesome biological concepts in their teaching, describe the cognitive process that underlies them which may determine why they are troublesome, and to identify the links they perceive with our nominated cognitive thresholds

Portfolio tools: learning and teaching strategies to facilitate development of graduate attributes

Background and Aims: Based on previous developments at UNSW of an electronic Graduate Attributes Portfolio (Brawley et al. 2003), and the increasing body of evidence on the educational use of portfolios, this project embedded the Portfolio into a Bachelor of Psychology course, with a particular emphasis on professional development and employability skills of students. The primary aim of this project was to encourage and support students in taking responsibility for identifying their own goals, identifying the qualities required to achieve those goals, and reflecting upon and documenting their own career-relevant achievements. Method: The Portfolio required students to record anecdotal evidence of their academic, extracurricular, and employment-related activities relevant to each of the UNSW graduate attributes. Specific strategies were implemented to (a) assist students to become aware of their current level of achievement in each of the graduate attributes and how these attributes relate to the employability skills, (b) provide structured development of specific attributes within the course, and (c) encourage further development of these attributes prior to graduation and associated job interviews. Results and Conclusions: To date, the specific outcomes of this project have been (a) the development of learning and teaching strategies that enable students to see the relevance of documenting and further planning the development of graduate attributes and career-related achievements, (b) the development of a portfolio support website that can assist any current and future students in these activities, and (c) the development of teaching resources that can be implemented in assisting students develop these skills

Engineering critical conversations to enhance the generalist degree

In generalist degrees such as the Bachelor of Science and Bachelor of Arts, students can take any number of combinations of subjects according their own learning goals. Tracking their progress in regard to graduate attributes development is therefore particularly difficult. Over half of our undergraduate science and arts students are enrolled in the flagship generalist degree programs (BSc and BA), and most of our staff teach into these degrees, which provides a powerful incentive to examine where and how students are being offered opportunities to develop graduate attributes (GA) within their program. This work builds on our previous initiatives to demonstrate how we mapped GA development across programs for both commonly chosen pathways (goat tracks) within the generalist BSc and BA and professionally-defined pathways or specialist degrees. Engineering space for critical conversations, with staff and students, to explore student learning requires a catalyst. In the case of the BA at UNSW, the catalyst was provided by a complete BA program renewal, a management-driven process. The catalyst for staff to engage in GA mapping in BSc at UNSW was provided by scholarly leadership from within the discipline. From these critical conversations, regardless of the type of catalyst, staff were able to become more explicit in identifying where and how the GA were linked to the students' learning activities and assessment tasks