Science Faculty Meeting
Minutes
Thursday 15th March 2012
All Faculty Meetings will be SMART
Specific
1.
Measurable
Action Orientated
Realistic
Technically correct
Prayer
Danny opened the meeting with a Prayer focussing on Einstein and Faith. The PowerPoint
can be found here:
//staff-fs1/Faculties/Science/Science 2012/Science meeting 15th March 2012
2.
Present: DAB, ALC, KEM, NIW, GHG, URF, DNK, DAK, DMG, RJK, VAG, CXU, MJF, JHD, GBP,
SCT
3.
Apologies: ANF, KEB, MJS
4.
General Business
Progress reports
Brief reports were given by all present, indicating how their classes were going. Comments
were overwhelmingly positive.
Year 11 Chemistry and Physics groups have some very highly motivated students this year.
Year 10 Horizons group is doing lots of prac and has been on an excursion to Heritage
Holden.
Ag Hort students have been on an excursion to view tractors.
Concern was expressed by Year 12 Teachers re number of classes lost this term and difficulty
in staying up to date with program.
IPads are going well in year 7, though some students have yet to install all of the required
programs.
Conference Reports
Valdy attended the afternoon and evening sessions of the VCE Physics Conference. He
reported that the Meet The Examiners session was excellent as always. He also picked up
new ideas for Extended Practical Investigations. There was an extra session presented by
Maria James, from VCAA, on the removal of mid-year exams. It was surprising to hear that
the main reason was that Victoria is the only state that has mid-year exams and that this was
done with a view towards consistency when the Australian Curriculum is introduced at Years
11 and 12 in 2015. There are many implications for delivery of courses and changes in
assessment. One thing that we will need to consider at MLMC is providing our students with
a 2.5 hour exam at the end of Year 11 covering the entire Year’s work, so that the end of Year
12 is not the first time students have such an experience. Maria’s PowerPoint presentation
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can be found at the staff-fs1 link. Urszula, Nick and Karen attended similar sessions with
Maria at the Biology and Chemistry conferences.
Urszula and Nick received a sample of the extra SAC. They attended a session on a Genetics
Workshop which La Trobe CRC provides free of charge. They also received extensive
Electronic Resources and PowerPoints provided by a Carey Grammar teacher. The displays
set up by companies selling equipment, books and other resources were disappointing.
Karen was very impressed by a presentation of the online Jacaranda studyON Program.
Details can be found here:
http://issuu.com/wiley_publishing/docs/science_catalogue_20112012_web?mode=embed&layout=http://skin.issuu.com/v/dark/layout.xml&showFlipBtn=tru
e&logo=http://www.jaconline.com.au/NewsRdy/0000000024/jacplus/images/jacarandaplus
_logo.png&logoOffsetX=5&logoOffsetY=5
5.
Learning Centred Business
AUSVELS
Danny showed us how to access the AUSVELS site and led us through a PowerPoint
presentation that he had prepared. It can be found at the link previously indicated.
Teams were set up to continue curriculum writing. They are:
Year 7: ALC & KEM. SCT will also help.
Year 8: URF, GHG, GBP will help if allocated to Science on Course Writing Days
Year 9: SCT, RJK, DNK
Year 10: NIW, DAB, MJF
 Classroom Support
Clare drew our attention to: A Chemistry Quiz Beachball, ten sets of rocks and five paper
aeroplane launchers. She also requested that we do not return chemicals directly to the
storage area, as it is her responsibility to ensure that they finish up in the correct zone.
 Ideas Sharing
Rod described a wave machine that his class had constructed from duct tape and jelly
babies. Further details on how to make one can be found here:
http://www.nationalstemcentre.org.uk/elibrary/resource/2096/wave-machine
Stuart showed us a prac report completed on an iPad, using Pages, Numbers and
photos.
Danny reminded us that we have a range of data logging probes. He also demonstrated
the CUDOS document camera with a particular emphasis on how it can be used to scan
images to be included in other presentations.
The meeting concluded at 4:30 pm.
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