Shifting from STEM to STEAM - Reflecting on Academic Identity and Scholarship

This paper offers some backgrounding on the sometimes vexed area of ‘academic identities’ through descriptions and reflections of select moments in my career where my scholarly work was informed by my home discipline of Biology and extended into other discipline spaces, specifically the Arts. I offer examples of my work where the “A” in STEAM is evident including examples of poetry and visual art projects that have allowed for the communication of ideas without the constraints of scientific prose. I reflect on the importance (to me) of working across disciplines as fields of practice and of connecting with others like me within science (including students), and across and outside of science and so offering validation. These Science-Art moments have given me permission to be myself, to exhale

Using intervention strategies to engage tertiary biology students in their development of numeric skills

Tertiary Biology students are expected to calculate parameters from their experimental data gathered in practical classes, interpret the meaning(s) of these biological parameters and then discuss their findings in the context of the published literature. As teachers we expect students to have developed sound numeracy skills from their previous studies and be able to transfer these numeracy skills into their studies in Biology. However, Biology students are less than confident about performing calculations. Using research on student anxiety of learning mathematical skills (Meece , Wigfield and Eccles 1990; Boyd, Cullen, Bass, Pittman and Regan 1998; Klinger 2004) and self-efficacy intervention strategies (Hattie, Biggs and Purdie 1996; Pajares, Miller and Johnson 1999; Phan and Walker 2000; Schulz 2005), a numeric skills task was designed for second year plant science students and has been implemented since 2001. The numeric skills task allows each student to determine their confidence in: (a) their understanding of numeric concepts; (b) their understanding of quantities used in plant physiology; and, (c) their ability to calculate and convert between units of measure. An evaluation of the task shows that although all students were able to demonstrate their understanding of a physical parameter (e.g., volume), 32% of students were not confident with applying this understanding to estimating volumes, e.g., the volume of the tutorial room. A high proportion of students (47%) lacked confidence with converting between cubic metres and litres. Feedback from open-ended responses was categorised to measure student engagement with the task. Students who were the least confident with their answers had high levels of engagement with the numeracy task compared with those students who were more confident with their numeracy skills, indicating that students most likely to benefit from the task had been successfully targeted. Enabling students to engage in their own skills development appears to be a useful approach, particularly for students lacking confidence. This work is an analysis of a current assessment practice, and is being extended into a research project to help define the numeracy threshold of students in the Life Sciences

Using assessment audits to understand students’ learning obstacles

Undergraduate science students are given opportunities to link the descriptions of scientific phenomena presented in lectures to their own observations of similar scientific phenomena in practical classes so as to reinforce key concepts. Being able to conceptually move between the scientific phenomena and the abstracted figures or equations that represent those phenomena is a key skill. Developing this skill, and confidence with applying this skill, is the implicit objective of many undergraduate practical classes. However, students seem unable to adequately explain their observations, despite the implementation of many “how to” guides, and this is of concern, which is why we seek to identify some of the factors that seem to impede students from being able to correctly translate and explain scientific data. We audited 118 laboratory reports in from second year molecular biology students to assess students’ abilities to correctly record and calculate data, appropriately present data, and clearly explain the representation of their data. Each of these abilities were linked to criteria in the report marking scheme students had been provided and for the purpose of our audit, graded as to whether the students completed the task poorly or not at all (1), adequately with some errors (2), or correctly and clearly (3). The data showed that a high proportion of students could not complete these tasks correctly and confirms that students have difficulty moving between the phenomena they observe and its abstract presentation. Having identified and quantified where students are having difficulties, we will use this information to inform the design of an online learning module to improve the conceptual linkages between a) an observed scientific phenomenon, b) the experimental data c) how these data are presented and d) interpreted. We expect to be able to determine the efficacy of this approach by re-auditing laboratory reports, after the online module is in place

TRANSNATIONAL CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT – A CASE STUDY FROM AGRICULTURE

BACKGROUND This project describes a collaboration between Cambodian and Australian scientists to develop a contemporary transnational Cambodian curriculum in agriculture to support the next generation of technology-focused land management practices in Cambodia and to improve Cambodian teaching and learning practices in higher education. The project has grown from our existing international research and development partnership Cambodian Sustainable Intensification and Diversification, which is funded by Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research; the World Bank is supporting the work to revise the Cambodian curriculum. PROGRESS TO DATE To date, Cambodian and Australian academics and students have worked closely together to collect data pertaining to the current agricultural practices. We have identified areas where we can introduce technology to support farmers and agricultural students, for example we have developed mApps in both Khmer and English, making learning science opportunities to hone English. NEXT STEPS The next step is to share how we teach with each other and find further opportunities to improve the levels of access and use of technology in agricultural and plant science curricula

Implementing strategies to engage students across disciplines as partners to support 3D object based learning

BACKGROUND Engaging students in the generation of digital 3D learning objects offers an interesting ‘students-as-partners’ opportunity (Healey et al., 2014). Both sides of the partnership arguably have similar levels of digital literacy, which makes for an equitable collaboration (Dimon et al., 2019). Co-creating 3D objects allows students to develop digital skills and fluency e.g. skills in scanning, photogrammetry, metatagging and curation of digital and actual objects. Offering core learning objects via platforms such as the Pedestal3D (2019), e.g. https://sydney.pedestal3d.com/, allows multiple students to have simultaneous, close, unsupervised access to virtual objects at any time. To date our work has sat across Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and the Faculty of Science, focusing on objects in museum collections. ARGUMENT Across STEAM we aspire to develop strategies that improve students’ digital fluencies and at the same time as accommodate different disciplinary perspectives. We advocate that students and staff work together to create a transdisciplinary educational virtual object repository to house existing educational collections of archaeological artefacts, botanical, zoological and geological specimens. Projects like this, where the selection of key pedagogic objects for scanning is discussed with students, supports active learning and reveals the hidden curriculum (Bergenhengouwe, 1987). The ‘value add’ is that this approach ensures digital objects and associated metadata can be accessed online so many of the issues of increasing class sizes and stretched resources are alleviated. CONCLUSIONS Small scale implementation by early adopters to co-create 3D objects is relatively simple. Support at the institutional level is less straightforward and this support is critical in order to implement sustainable strategies. What support can be reasonably expected from our institutions to support innovations that open up collaborative spaces and that foster technology-based transdisciplinary student partnerships

A comparison of student usage of traditional verses ICT learning resources in the Life Sciences

The aim of the present study was to quantify the use of different teaching and learning resources in a mixed learning environment and evaluate whether students had different preferences for ICT and traditional modes of delivery to support specific aspects of their learning. We were interested in determining the extent to which students were using traditional learning resources, on-line modules and communications technologies, such as peer collaboration by email, and whether these differing resources were being used by students to learn new knowledge, to consolidate their knowledge, for exam revision and/or for personal interest

Quantitative Skills and Complexity: How can we Combat these Challenges and Equip Undergraduate Students to Think and Practice as Biologists?

Mapping the pedagogical process of learning in biology has shown that fieldwork and laboratory practicals require students to use quantitative skills in a high-level learning context. These tasks include creating graphical representations of data and performing statistical analyses, and are major areas of student disengagement and poor performance. Biology educators face a challenge: how to keep students engaged in mastering new techniques and methodology to develop the ‘thinking of a biologist’, while developing confidence using quantitative mathematical skills. Here we investigate the use of an online learning module in molecular biology to simplify this complex process of learning in biology. The module emphasised the links between the concept (gene regulation), experiments (growing Escherichia coli in the presence of different effector molecules and substrates) and the data recorded. An audit of student assignments and surveys before and after the introduction of the module indicated that students improved their data presentation skills. Results highlight the cognitive and practical complexity of the task. The usefulness of consolidating information by providing extra time using a blended approach to laboratory practicals is discussed. Finally, the relationship between the practical activity and threshold concepts, thinking dispositions and mindfulness is made to better understand how we can assist students to become quantitatively confident and competent in their practice as biologists

eBot: a collaborative learning object repository for Australian flora

The University of Sydney eBot project was designed as a collaborative, sustainable repository for digital botanical objects. From its inception the repository was viewed as an effective way to bring together the collections of images and resources that we use in research and to support learning and teaching of undergraduate Plant Sciences at The University of Sydney. Objects contained within the repository range from the microscopic to entire landscapes. They include digitised herbarium specimens and associated temporal and spatial data. The metadata supporting the system enable effective archiving and retrieval of objects and is informed by international developments in botanical digital standards. The strength of this repository is that part of the metadata maps to the currently accepted taxonomy for the green plants. The eBot schema was derived from a range of descriptive standards, including the Herbarium Information Standards and Protocols for Interchange of Data (HISPID). This will ensure compatibility with digital herbaria in Australia. In addition to describing the scientific content of objects, the project addresses access and sustainability issues by including rights management data and information about the technical attributes of each object. To ensure the integrity of database content, all objects are validated by an expert reviewer prior to the images going ‘live’. eBot will be accessible later in 2008. Our view is that the project has potential to be used beyond the Plant Sciences and outside the university environment

Identifying common thresholds in learning for students working in the 'hard' discipline of Science

Biglan (1973) divides academic disciplines into hard and soft, with subcategories of pure and applied, and life and non-life. We have conducted a study spanning these sub-categories in the ‘hard’ discipline of science, focused on looking for common factors that impede student learning. A survey of second year undergraduate courses in Thermal Physics, Quality of Medical Practice and Molecular Biology was conducted. A common theme identified was the students’ struggle with numeracy skills. Our survey results suggest this has less to do with a real weakness in mathematics, the students in these courses generally have strong mathematical backgrounds, and is more related to two factors – lack of relevance, which reduces their willingness to engage with the challenging aspects of the mathematics, and difficulties in transforming their ‘pure’ mathematical training into a form that allows them to use it effectively in their chosen courses

Supporting botanical literacy in the undergraduate science curriculum and beyond with a 71 bespoke campus app

BACKGROUND For almost 100 years it has been acknowledged that the participation in the study of plants at university level has been in decline (Nichols 1919, Hershey 1993, Uno 1994, Drea 2011). It is unlikely that there is a single cause to which this decline can be attributed, however new and emerging biology disciplines (genetics, genomics, proteomics, molecular biology) have impacted on the amount of Botany being taught and when given a choice of using plants or animals to illustrate a concept animal examples dominate (Hershey 1996). This botanical underrepresentation is considered cyclic in that less interest in botany generated at the undergraduate level will lead to fewer educators with sufficient botanical knowledge, in turn leading to again lower levels of botanical representation (Hershey 1993, Uno 1994). At the University of Sydney, we are offering a revised botany curriculum where the number of units of study dedicated to the study of plants has been reduced by half. In the Botany curriculum we now offer, it is crucial to offer maximum engagement with all aspects of Botany and this includes improved engagement with the plants on campus. DESCRIPTION OF INTERVENTION We have developed an app that presents an annotated map of the campus vegetation that can be aligned to the undergraduate biology curriculum. Each plant included in the map is described and phylogenetic information is provided. We have created an illustrated botanical glossary to further support learning ‘in situ’, that is learning not only ‘just in time’ but ‘just in place’. Critically, this intervention included undergraduate student participation and the ‘proof of concept’ – the web-based version of the intervention- was a project undertaken by Lachlan Pettit as his project for Advanced Botany (BIOL2923). We are cognizant that developments such as these that exploit mobile technologies have enormous potential to present the importance of plants in a number of frames beyond the purely scientific. With this in mind, we are ensuring that the app design is aligned with a scientific phylogeny and that the design can be extended to include indigenous phylogenies and links to national initiatives such as Climate Watch. Mobile technologies are improving, especially mapping resolutions. TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS OF THE APP iOS app: Development Environment: Xcode 6 & Swift Target devices: iPhone 4 and above Main features: Plant mapping, navigation, plant information, slideshows Frameworks: Foundation, CoreGraphics, UIKit, Mapkit Web app: Architecture: HTML5 + CSS3 Target devices: Mac, PC, Mobile devices Main features: Plant mapping, plant information, slideshows, integrated quiz, glossary of terms CONCLUSIONS Through a blend of good design and innovative mobile technologies we hope to increase botanical awareness and reconnect people with the plants around them. We have high expectations that by using the app to investigate the diverse campus flora we can engage students more effectively. As this project is taken forward it will align with the University of Sydney’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander integrated strategy: Wingara Murra – Bunga Barrabugu. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We thank the School of Biological Sciences for the Summer Scholarship awarded to Lachlan Pettit in 2013. We thank the staff of the Grounds Unit, Facilities Management and Services, University of Sydney for access to ArborPlan