ALTC Discipline Networks
Discipline Network Leaders & Project Overviews
Inquiry Learning in Science –
Les Kirkup, fellowship Les.Kirkup@uts.edu.au (02) 9514 2218
Apply and adapt framework for developing sustainable innovations at subject and
program level.
How activities are experienced by students and facilitators of large classes.
Share across disciplines.
Envy Cafe, 109 Smith St., Summer Hill; 19/8/11: 10am-12noon
[ add a synopsis from proposal here ]
[ Type up notes from meeting here ]
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ALTC Discipline Networks
Biomedical -- CUBENet
Phil Poronnik (RMIT), philip.poronnik@rmit.edu.au Mobile: 0412 058 245
The aim of this proposal is to establish a collaborative network driven by those academics
who are directly involved in the learning and teaching of biomedical sciences and to
provide a framework that facilitates productive interactions between the biomedical
sciences and other national and international networks involved in science education.
It is envisioned as a “one stop‐shop” for current and future activities in learning and
teaching in the biomedical sciences and associated networks. At the heart of the
dissemination strategy is the website and newsletter. … Central to the activities of
CUBENET will be the workshops, retreats and forums. In order to maximize
dissemination and to inform activities into the following year, we propose that
CUBENET hold a joint three day national forum with VIBE and the Quantitative Skills in
Science group who are already planning symposia to present the findings of their ALTC
project in Dec 2012.
Key implementation phases, with deliverables and timeline
Phase 1 (Dec 2011- Jan 2011)
· National Biomedical Education Forum in Canberra (already funded) – official launch
of CUBENET & formation of leadership group & working parties & identify themes
· Conference report & proceedings
Phase 2 (Feb-Nov 2012)
· Establishment of website and newsletter
· Working parties to plan workshop around strategic priorities identified at Forum
· Workshop and interim report on priorities (July)
· Leadership retreat to develop leadership capacity and develop links plus report
Phase 3 (Dec 2012)
· Joint Forum/Symposia to summarise progress, plan activities in 2013 as well as
exploring collaborative options with other network groups, reports finalized,
proceedings published.
Phase 4 (Jan–Nov 2013)
· Workshop as per Phase 2 with new priorities being addressed.
Phase 5 (Dec 2013)
· National Forum to review project & strategic plan for sustainability (report to
DEEWR)
Phone chat on 15/8/11: 1pm
Recap of what BioMed Science Network is meant to do –
1. Forum in Canberra in Dec. to form leadership group and working parties
2. 3-day forum with biologists & quant skills project at end of 2012 to summarise
and plan
3. workshop on priorities after
4. leadership development retreat
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ALTC Discipline Networks
Where could a national network help?
Recap of what National Network is doing
Meeting for kick off in December; nucleus are six persons on the grant
Phil Long from UQ wants to do a fancy website / platform for the effort
Set priorities this December at national forum, get website up and running soon after
that, get working parties going in first six months of next year; meeting to consolidate in
middle 2012
Retreats for leadership development to have no agenda; two days with enthusiasts to just
talk, free form thinking
Biomedical network needs physics, chem., biology; hence, national network serves to
interlink among these disciplines
Chemists need to know how to teach in biomed arena
Network can serve as a reality check on effectiveness of service teaching; chemistry needs
to be taught in a more engaging way
Agrees that what works in some science disciplines works in others
Sally Kift is using his science show materials for Law
National Network could help with aggregating, influencing, and connecting
Feed up needs to national network to relay to other discipline groups
What Kelly Matthews did in quant skills project with people running courses to see what
works and what does not
Particularly useful in service teaching (WR suggested); service teaching should try to
steal students; high level skills are required in maths and other areas; need health
professionals who know more about research
Demographics of the output/graduates – who is going into needed areas
Impact of TEQSA – discussion paper is pretty rubbishs; can use TEQSA to do what we have
been struggling to do; use it as a stick / threat
Look beyond the traditions of the ALTC; not sure how relevant ALTC was seen to be by the
broader uni community
Want to lobby the government to get students access to iPads; students should offset cost
of mobile computing device on HECS; not sure ALTC did much in the way of policy
WR – aligns with new media / ICT theme – community of practice
Buy in from Academy is useful
Wants to see big picture thinking; here to make a noise and make trouble
Being more political, bringing Academy and societies into the game
WR – aligns with our national network representing a critical mass, a community, and
not just individuals or individual universities
Dream is to have a list of attributes to achieve and how to achieve them; portfolio for
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ALTC Discipline Networks
students to track their progress
Physicists are good at short-answer quizzes answered in bullet points; biologists can
learn from that
WR – scarcity approach to sharing materials; instead of giving them away, have people
pay to gain access, hide behind password
Science is becoming more and more interdisciplinary; curriculum does not support that;
no curriculum to support synthetic biology or proteomics; no awareness of
informatics/bioinformatics;
Students may be scared of bioinformatics due to equations and quantitative aspects
Start in first year with capstone project, and spend three years learning how to make it
work
Interdisciplinarity could be a useful fourth theme for our national network
Easier to do something innovative at RMIT, pharmaceutical sciences
What is the point of a 3-year undergrad degree?
Students have to be advocates for science, play a role in society
Multi-media is not unpacked for students
Expose student to experts in a range of fields
Passionate about teaching students transferrable abilities, like learning how to draw
“Curriculum for the real world”
we do not teach science the way we actually learn it
WR -- Another potential national theme – blank slate curriculum
Phil – can experiment with smaller groups of students; leadership network can figure out
who can do experimentation in teaching, e.g., what majors that are more manageable in
size, have the right expertise, right demographic of students; national net can identify
areas of strength/specialization
WR – agree
Phil – did application as an outgrowth of the national forum hosted at Academy of
Science; L&T agenda tends to be driven by junior people without much record in research;
hopes that biomedical science networks incorporates heads of school; he was T&L sceptic
years ago; ALTC gives researchers a chance to get involved in T&L;
Change in T&L occurs peer-to-peer, not through teaching and learning units
A bit concerned about UniServe and its interest in its own history; identify one conference
a year to send academics to; wants to see a new conference
Roundtable at HERDSA, talked about interesting stuff
Group could commission some surveys of colleagues about whether they would like to
teach better, for example; survey at UQ suggested that academics would like to teach
better, but they don’t know well; they need to be shown how to do simple things rather
than given theory
Need to involve the students, a negotiated curriculum; student representatives to provide
feedback
Why not lobby government for teaching fellowships
They could be recognized as mentors/leaders
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ALTC Discipline Networks
Some of the fellows have developed own networks, which are critical
WR – for projects, person who holds the network together is the project officer; in
fellowships, the network node is held together with an ongoing academic
Phil – need only one or two websites; have a reliable network hub who can send people in
the right direction; national network is the keeper of the benchmarks and of strategies for
how to achieve those benchmarks
Chemistry –
Madeleine Schultz (QUT) madeleine.schultz@qut.edu.au (07) 3138 2151
The aim of the Chemistry Discipline Network is to strengthen the learning and teaching
of chemistry at Australian universities by forming a community of practice to exchange
experiences, share resources and implement best practice such as seeding
collaborative groups with common interests and teaching and learning foci.
The ALIUS project has been somewhat limited in its effectiveness because of a lack of
resources to disseminate outcomes outside the project team. The proposed Chemistry
Discipline Network will be more effective because there will be extremely low barriers
to participation, and chemistry-specific materials (include classroom activities and
assessment tools) suitable for the Australian context will be disseminated for free. In
the US in the field of Inorganic Chemistry, the IonicViper project
(https://www.ionicviper.org/) is a similar community of practice among inorganic
chemistry academics. This was formed in 2008 and has already been effective at
sharing knowledge, developing materials and building community; it has around 500
academic registered users and over 330 learning objects have been shared through
this portal. The proposed Chemistry Discipline Network will address the following
National Priorities in Higher Education as described below:
· Inclusion of students from low SES
· Strengthening provision of regional higher education
· Investing in tertiary education and research infrastructure
· A national quality and standards agency
· Strengthening the relationship between higher education and vocational education
and training
Measurable outcomes from this project will include:
· a website (building on the ALIUS site) with registered contributors from all Australian
universities.
· an exploration of the feasibility of unified examination instruments, which would
allow, for the first time, Australian universities to benchmark the performance of their
students with other Australian and international universities.
· reports, to be published in suitable scholarly journals, on the outcomes in individual
universities as well as comparative reports.
· a group of motivated and enthusiastic practitioners for ongoing quality enhancement
for chemical sciences learning and teaching.
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ALTC Discipline Networks
· a community of practice model that can be used by other molecular sciences (e.g.
pharmacy).
Implementation phases:
I – initial committee meeting and discussions within project team members from each
institution; agreement on goals and strategies; launch of website
II – website contributions and discussion; project team work on articulating the
important outcomes that are shared by all institutions within the discipline of
chemistry; development of assessment tools
III – dissemination to other teachers within each institution, using best practices in
effective dissemination; testing of assessment tools with feedback and improvement
Phone chat on 15/8/11: 9.30-10.30am
Recap of what Chem Network is meant to do –
5. collect teaching strategies and share them through website, interactions within
community of practice, & …
6. focus on common assessment tools
7. publications
Where could a national network help?
Recap of what National Network is doing
Madeleine -- Service subjects are an issue, what subjects are taken in which degree
programs; the culture of a science faculty v the culture of an applied science/engineering
faculty
Madeleine -- she and Dann Mallett feel that they are being told what they will do after
winning grant based on EOI; feel used; not feeling inclined to change what was proposed
New dean of STEM faculty, Martin Betts, was awarded ALTC Network (in engineering);
might be a more sympathetic dean
Similar issues between science and engineering; AAEE conf in Brisbane (?)
Discipline Day at UniServe; asked for network to make a poster; she will make info sheet
also as poster; putting mind map of how chem. net fits with other nets, other ALTC
fellowships and projects; wondering how TEQSA connects; Steph is putting mind map into
a pretty format
WR – networks may relate to TEQSA by suggesting standards;
Bring your mind map to Monday’s meeting
Madeleine – want a survey of what programs are doing; read our AUTC Biotech report; is
looking for qualitative data package to analyse documentation; massive project to get the
data;
sharing learning objects, e.g., as in physics; Les Kirkup showed site that shares over 200
learning objects, like pracs; short paragraph summaries and e-mail address was way to
get around people being too busy
WR – seen SkillCity?
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ALTC Discipline Networks
Madeleine – where will web sites be hosted? Within Chemistry, host in RACI, as it is
familiar and has login and password; protected so that exam questions are hidden from
students; generate traffic by getting word out there to people who are teaching a new
subject or getting bad student reviews; incorporate into induction programs; engagement
will be biggest challenge
WR – talk on Monday about sharing materials within and across disciplines; linking
websites to places where there is web traffic; share across disciplines
Madeleine – colleague at UNSW suggested that learning objects need to go as is, not
needing adaptation
WR – maybe, we should separate teaching strategies into content-based aspects and
process-based aspects
Madeleine – IP issues; ALTC owns IP; issues when what is developed at one university is
built on at another uni and then made available via ALTC; e-mail from Glennys about
‘content without borders’ that U of Wollongong has opted to join, contributing learning
objects -- http://oer.equella.com
WR – create a hurdle to accessing teaching materials so that they are not seen as free;
pressure of TEQSA plus some sort of vetting; perhaps do the vetting each year at UniServe
or in education interest group at discipline conferences or in induction programs
Madeleine – there is a process of renewal with young staff coming in; give the evidencebased materials; all are having to do teaching induction programs; have engagement
with network count toward induction qualification or grad cert
WR – ask people who run induction programs to have trainees vet materials to be shared;
mention on Monday how we are going to engage induction programs for academic staff
Madeleine – J Chem Educ takes 4 years to publish a piece; also, as you suggested, divide
teaching strategies into activity-based and content-based aspects;
Maeleine -- ‘a bit over leadership terminology’; how are we going to find people will
actually do something? Carrick 2005?? report out of Flinders about how to get academics
to engage with teaching issues; scientists are evidence-based about research but not
about teaching; will send the reference
Madeleine – 20 minutes in discipline day at ACSME about national network and new
media project; wants to find someone to set up technology at Melbourne Uni;
Madeleine -- I need to be involved in Leadership training to learn how to influence Dean,
but do not have the time
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ALTC Discipline Networks
Biology – VIBE.net
Charlotte E. Taylor (U Syd) cetaylor@bio.usyd.edu.au (02) 9351 5788 or 0414395559
A distinct gap exists in the learning and teaching of Biology because Australia has no
active overarching representative body …
The specific aims of this discipline network will be to:
1. Develop a national identity and network (VIBE.net) for university biology teachers,
to build on the ALTC LTAS Science threshold learning outcomes and develop Biology
Threshold Learning Outcomes
2. Mentor the next generation of Biology teachers (n=50) (ie current sessional staff) to
enhance active/inquiry learning in biology, particularly at the first year level, and to
build teams of academics, sessional staff and students (n=20) at the institutional level,
in each state/region
3. Create a Vision and Innovation statement which reflects the collective
understandings about the direction of the future biological curriculum, especially at
first year level
Implementation phases, with deliverables and timeline
1. The project will utilise its existing network of biologists, from the BioAssess,
Threshold Concepts and ASELL projects, to create institutional teams of teachers,
sessional teachers and current students …
2. The second stage will develop a travelling workshop series, modelled on previous
successful initiatives, to connect with the biology community. … Biology Threshold
Learning Outcomes … forum for the collection, and dissemination, of effective teaching
practice …
3. We will again present outcomes at the UniServe (ACSME) conference …
4. The third phase will bringing together network participants to develop practical
tools based on the BTLOs which can be adapted to different teaching programs.
5. Finally, we will conduct a survey to establish the participants’ ideas for change in
curriculum and the identity of biology as a discipline …
Phone conversation on Friday, 19 August 2011: 2pm-3pm
extending a network; started 5 years ago with bioassess project; used some of those
people in thresholds and inquiry as well as quant skills project (periphery); core group at
every university have been involved in some project
biology as a discipline has not been at the forefront of T&L issues, not like physics and
chem.; is diverse; biology can be in a range of faculties; trying to define what a biologist is
can be quite difficult; what we are doing can be seen as outside core biology; first-year
teaching is the commonality; focus is based on where dept is, what research is, what
professional society; diversity is challenge in bringing them together
no particular problems with previous projects in getting biologists to work together on
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ALTC Discipline Networks
assessment project or in threshold project; getting to communicate with people who were
not teaching straight biology, e.g., in service teaching; tapped into insights from crossdisciplinary T&L conferences; saw biologists coming out of the woodwork
education tradition has strengths in some areas of biology, e.g., micro, physiology;
application EOI did not have professional bodies to go to; no such body in Australia, but
one exists in Europe; proposed network will fill the gap
maths seems to be different; maths lecturers seem less inclined to have students do
research as undergrads; maths learning curve is low and flat; chemistry and physics are
different
WR - - perhaps we need some sort of mapping among disciplines about threshold learning
outcomes, which occur at which point in students’ development, which year of study
Travelling showcase for threshold concepts project; a lot of younger staff coming in; need
to pass on to new people, get more people engaged; threshold concepts theme seems to
click with researchers; a way to get to people who might not otherwise get engaged with
teaching and learning issues; not a lot of programs for young staff
What is a biologist, address commonality at first year
Trying to work out what Phil Poronnik
If all had the same technology, we could change things
WR – students all have mobile phones
Lecturers are loath to try things if they are not sure if they are going to work; they need
to see things actually working
Could buy students iPads, not hard, gleam in eye of some people
Interdisciplinarity is an interesting theme; happens more in the States; someone out from
Stanford in biology – teach biology, physics, etc. in one unit; could not see any uni in
Australia doing that; in Australia, there is catering to the non-major among science
subjects
WR – US has four-year degree with distribution requirements
UNSW have General Education subjects, but U of Sydney do not have them
A lot of teaching staff would do things if there were not impediments in the way; silly
things that have nothing to do with curriculum
Local networks are difficult; finding people to connect to in each city was difficult, as
people in each city was difficult
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ALTC Discipline Networks
WR – explained Nat Net aims
Webinar – to what extent can audiences participate, e.g., for online tutorials for students;
wants discussion facility that hangs off that; have 700 students who may want to log on;
want it to be seamless
WR – try Elluminate; talk to Moodle, Google+, …
Want technology that suits teaching; tech is almost there
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ALTC Discipline Networks
Mathematics – Australian Mathematical Sciences L&T Network
Dann Mallet (QUT) dg.mallet@qut.edu.au (07) 3138 2354 Skype: dann_80
… Applied and pure maths, statistics, and operations research …
Aims:
1. Continue to improve the preparation of new mathematical sciences academics;
2. Continue to raise the status of mathematics teaching and educational research;
3. Assist in further embedding previous ALTC project outcomes into the greater
mathematical sciences community in Australia.

Web site,

reports, journal article on network, conference presentations,

seminars (video),

meeting proceedings,

annual conference day tied to AusMathSciences, engagement with ALTC
Leadership development effort,

linking up lecturers,

SIG of AustMS,

presentation to Council of Heads of Mathematical Sciences,

elected body to continue/sustain.
Phone chat on Thursday, 18 August, 12noon Friday, 19/8/11: 1pm-1.45pm.
Not expecting to start until Dec 2011, but now may get going earlier
Side involvement w/ Ann Porter’s ALTC project; tablet PCs and online learning to learn
maths;
Want to get head in right place, find out what others are thinking, where they are going
Want to make educational research in maths more acceptable as a research area; his
efforts on this project represent a mix of research and service to community
List of people in the proposal are all current or previous grant holders
Tried to approach universities in every territory, mix of ATN and G08; best effort given
one week to prepare
When proposal started, was not thinking about science, more generally
How does Nat Net relate to other sciences?
Some people were concerned that proposal was not more student-centred; rather,
framework to enable and support student-centred teaching and dissemination of such
practices
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ALTC Discipline Networks
WR -- What can national network do for you? Sharing project officers, national
directory?
Content-focus v process-focus – mathematicians seem pretty content-focused; quite rigid
on content and structure, ordering of content; prerequisites are well defined
Ann Porter’s group is releasing to community a collection of short topic-based videos not
tied to any course that can be shared; unusual to see in maths and stats context; e.g., a 5minute video on differentiating a polynomial function or finding a Z statistic; could be
useful in a number of contexts for service teaching; could be useful for review
Missed deans of science meeting a month ago; what is going on in science community; will
start talking to heads of mathematics around the country
He says that he is the type of person he is aiming to facilitate to engage more with trying
to teach more effectively and doing so in a scientific way; had no support in his
department; saw opportunity to help make that happen for other people
Sees some people who are starting to understand SoTL as a serious research area
WR – not only need to invent, but need to disseminate and pursue change in others’
teaching
WR – will give you copy of Tobias book: Revitalising Uni Science
Just finished as director of studies; fantastic; 2 promotions in three years; legacy includes
symposium and people starting SoTL, with Steph’s help
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