Teaching is a career where professional renewal is key, and support is a necessity. Over the past year, I have found both of these through the Step Up team, and have been given the opportunities to attend the ASTA National Science Teachers Summer School, and to practise my teaching skills through the STEM Studio. ThisRead more about Teaching to learn – STEAM in 2015 at Queensland Creative Labs[…]
Last week some of our Step Up ambassadors and team members were fortunate to participate in the STEM to STEAM Creative Lab, gaining hands-on creative experience with inspiring STEAM resources and ideas. The Creative Lab was an ambitious event co-presented by Queensland Museum and The Cube at Queensland University of Technology, held at both venues on Friday andRead more about STEM to STEAM: 21st Century Learning[…]
Canberra put on beautiful weather for our last full day at the NSTSS. After our morning ritual of visiting the on-campus coffee shop, we met the group at the Science Teaching Seminar Building for an engaging talk on ‘Flipped Classrooms’. While all three of us were familiar with the term, we were unaware of how frequently it is used in higher education and how successful the strategy can be. Joe Hope who is a Physics lecturer at ANU explained how he video records his ‘lectures’ for students to watch at home, followed by a weekly 3 hour workshop for students to apply their new skills and ask questions. Joe was an engaging speaker and all of the teachers were excited about learning how to implement a ‘flipped classroom’ in their school.
After a morning walk across campus and discovery of a new coffee shop, we all perked up upon learning that we would be hearing from speakers from our major teaching area – biology. We had a series of talks from professors and PhD students from the ANU Research School of Biology. This was headed by Professor Stefan Broer, who discussed research in the area of insulin, transporter proteins and diabetes control. We also heard about drug resistance from Professor Richard Callaghan, spleen regeneration from Jonothan Tran, and herpes simplex virus proteins from Christina Salmon. This was an excellent array of current research within the field of biomedical science.
After a quick morning tea, Professor KC Wong from the School of Aerospace Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering gave us a fascinating talk on how we can inspire students to take tertiary pathways in STEM. Read more about Astronomy and more on day four …
Day 3 kicked off with an excited group of teachers heading to the first excursion of the trip – Parliament House. Many in the group had not visited Parliament before, and we were all fascinated by the amazing architecture and the stories behind some of the materials used in the building.
Rick, Andrew and Marissa from the Parliamentary Education Office then entertained us with some Parliamentary role plays, where we all had the opportunity to be part of a senate committee meeting on water recycling. These role plays were upbeat and educational, and will be great to adapt and bring back to the science classroom. We also had the opportunity to visit the House of Representatives, the Senate, and to tour the chambers. Read more about Day 3 – Parliament Bills and Playing with Chemicals …
After locating the campus coffee shop yesterday, getting going on day two was a lot easier!
We began with a visit to the ANU Engineering Labs, where we heard from Dr Henry Gardner on computer sciences and how to best incorporate ICT in the curriculum. Henry also provided us with useful websites including interactive games and competitions that introduce students to coding. Following this, we had a taste of Engineers Without Borders through an experiment designing water filtration systems for developing communities. This session, run by Jeremy Smith was a great activity that we are excited to try out in the classroom. Read more about Day 2: GM Food For Thought …
The first official day of the NSTSS kicked off with a warm welcome to the program from Vic Dobos (CEO ASTA), Damien Pierce (Director NYSF), and Andrew Laming (MP for Bowman). It was great to hear from three passionate science education advocates, who encouraged us to wholly embrace the program over the next week.
Following another lovely stroll through the ANU campus, we attended our first lecture, presented by Dr Kaylene Young on stem cell research. This lecture was both insightful and relevant to the three of us, as we share biology as a future teaching area.
We (Gabby, Gemma & Melissa) headed off to the National Science Teachers Summer School in Canberra this morning on our cosy Qantaslink flight, then heading to our accommodation (Ursula Hall) at the Australian National University.
We would like to welcome our new Step Up Ambassadors, Melissa Blacklock, Gabby Gilmore and Gemma Sardoni, who have been awarded the Step Up / ASTA Initiative Award.
These outstanding pre-service science teachers are about to travel to Canberra to attend the National Science Teachers Summer School (NSTSS), which runs from 11-17 January 2015.
We look forward to hear from Gabby, Gemma and Melissa as they share here their insights from the event.
