Issue 21 of
the SaMnet Australia Newsletter.
Happy New
Year from the SaMnet project team. This month’s newsletter provides a review of
activities in SaMnet in 2013 and highlights plans for 2014 – including February
workshops.
Feedback from the OLT on SaMnet’s Final
Report
In October
2013, SaMnet HQ submitted our final report for the OLT funded project: Fostering
institutional and cultural change through the Australian network of university
educators. The report focussed on the process and outcomes of SaMnet since
2011. It recounts how we worked to
develop “100 leaders of change” among science academics in Australian universities
and what evidence of impact were discerned.
Very
positive feedback about our endeavour (yours and ours) has been received from
the OLT’s reviewer.
Siobhan
Lenihan, the OLT’s (recent) Director of Grants and Fellowship, said of the
external reader for this project: “Dr Elizabeth McDonald was one of
the inaugural Directors of Carrick/ALTC , and before taking up that role worked
in the Higher Education Group of what was then the Commonwealth Department of
Education, Science and Training (DEST). Elizabeth took a strong interest
in projects funded under the Leadership Program, so she is especially pleased
with your report”.
Elizabeth
Macdonald herself commented: “I
was delighted to read this project report as it is such a milestone in the
growing understanding of how to bring about systemic change in learning and
teaching in Australia. It really shows the development from the early days of
the Carrick Institute when the Leadership Program began. Such an insightful and
important new approach to developing leadership capacity for change in the
context of science education could not have been imagined at that time!”
We thank you, the SaMnet community, for
your contributions to SaMnet’s development.
We will send you the final report when made public by the OLT.
Plans for early 2014
Three SaMnet
leadership development workshops have been scheduled so far for
February-March. The workshops will enable sharing strategies for spurring
adoption of innovative teaching practices, provide insight on leading change
and SoTL development, and offer advice on career progression.
Adelaide: Tuesday
25 February – Contact Amanda
Able
Melbourne:
Tuesday 25 February – Contact Gerry
Rayner
Brisbane:
Mid-March, Date TBA – Contact Sarah-Jane
Gregory
If you are
interested in hosting a workshop later in 2014 in your city, please contact SaMnetaustralia@gmail.com
2013 in Review
Recall that
in February 2013, SaMnet ran 5 leadership development workshops in Australian
capital cities. These well-attended
events included a 1-hour session from OLT fellow Liz Johnson on “Changing the
Game – The ACDS National Centre for Teaching and Learning for Science and
Mathematics”. Your input helped to shape
the new centre’s activities.
Your
action-learning projects progressed through to September, when many members of
the SaMnet community gathered at the ACSME conference at the University of
Canberra. Current and prospective
participants in SaMnet discussed what they could contribute to building SaMnet’s
reach and impact in coming years – e.g., hosting workshops or acting as
critical friends.
The latter
half of 2013 saw members of the SaMnet steering committee and the HQ team
debriefing each action-learning project
team as they came to the end of their two-year project schedule. We asked about
the impact of SaMnet on range of facets of development of ‘distributed
leadership’ among team members.A set of SaMnet
project abstracts was assembled, to tout SaMnet scholars for invitations to
speak at workshops, conferences, and other events.
Two editions
of the International Journal for
Innovation in Science and Maths Education were published based on papers
from SaMnet action-learning project teams. Congratulations to all teams who
have had their work published in 2013 in IJISME,
conference proceedings, or elsewhere (let us know where).
This monthly
newsletter currently has an audience of 127.
Multiple people have reported on the helpfulness of the network
information as well as SoTL and leadership articles. We plan on continuing this
helpful communication tool into 2014. We
welcome your contributions – identifying events to publicise, useful articles
on SoTL or Leadership, etc.