National recognition for UWS academics

Australia benefits greatly from a national and international reputation for high academic standards and high quality universities, courses and graduates. When questions are raised in this area, they are often associated with assessment and how you are assessed defines the curriculum under which you study. Assessment has the potential to be used as a strategic tool by educators that can define the learning that will be achieved and guide students into effective approaches for study.  Equally, poorly designed assessment has the potential to hinder learning and stifle curriculum innovation. This senior fellowship will develop the capacity of the sector to ensure that the quality of graduates being produced by our universities is relevant to the rapidly changing needs of the 21st century. The fellow will consider how multiple reference points might best be used to ensure the graduate capabilities developed in different fields of education are both relevant and desirable. This work will begin with a user-tested design process at the University of Western Sydney and following this, learnings, enhanced through international benchmarking, will be used to deliver workshops across the country to be followed by a national conference on what has been learnt.

Learning science involves imagination and modelling of imperceptible phenomena, such as molecular events, force fields and energy changes, to explain observable phenomena (eg: smells) and this allows the creation of new insights. Visualisation of these imperceptible phenomena is the key to making meaning from the symbolism and mathematics in science that too often alienates novice students. This senior fellowship will lead a national conversation on visualisation in university science, informed by a cognitive science search on the factors determining how the brain perceives, process, stores and receives audiovisual information. In a series of workshops, participants will experience best practice as they learn good design principles for visualisations and strategies for how to use them in their teaching.  In follow-up workshops, students will apply what they have learnt to design their own visualisations of challenging threshold concepts.

Higher education and academics are under an onslaught of pressures. To create the student and academic success desired to reconfigure the higher education landscape, the academic role needs to differentiate. This fellowship will reconceptualise the academic role and create a framework to evaluate academic teaching in the sciences. The lack of differentiation in the academic role is being felt acutely by the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines where the pervasive emphasis has been on research. Declining enrolments and perceived falling standards of STEM graduates, both nationally and internationally, raises concerns about the future pipeline of STEM graduates and a public that is well disposed towards science. The fellowship with involve work with higher education institutions, peak bodies, senior leaders in disciplinary research and teaching and early-mid career academics. It we reconceptualise the academic role in the sciences and create an evaluation framework to ensure Australia has excellent academics in STEM into the future.