Reconceptualising Tertiary Science Education for the 21 st Century

1. Reconceptualising Tertiary Science Education for the 21st Century Conducted by the ACDS (Australian Council of Deans of Science) Funded by the ALTC (Australian Learning and Teaching Council)

2. PROJECT DIRECTORS Professor Sue Thomas PVC Research, University of Canberra Professor John Rice Dept of Maths & Stats, University of Sydney Executive Director ACDS RESEARCHER Dr Paddy O’Toole School of Education, Flinders University

3. SCIENCE Knowledge grounded in experiment ERGO Science education must involve laboratory / field work Is this true? What does it explain about the rationale of lab programs? Not Really. Not Much

4. WHAT LAB WORK, WHEN, FOR WHOM? What lab work is appropriate for entry level courses? Is any necessary at all? Can other forms of experience deliver an understanding of science adequate for that level? Is there a vision of science and of student futures that underpins the answers to these questions?

5. STUDENT FUTURES Potential research scientists? Applied scientists? Lab Technicians? Anything else?

6. STUDENT FUTURES In general staff had no idea of how graduates would be employed, or how they would use their science, except in a ‘research’ sense

7. STUDENT FUTURES I am still amazed in the research area when we collaborate with people within these areas, they're doing the same techniques that we teach the students in the first and second years, for instance, but they dont, dont put the emphasis... on the technique and it may be because they don’t have the background information. So, to put it simply, we see people in other areas doing ….. and doing ….. poorly and so the better they can do the ….. the better their research and that will be as well"

8. The Changing Nature of Technical Work Once it was very important to have a laboratory workforce reliably trained in a wide range of complex but nonetheless routine processes. These days anything routine has probably been programmed into an automated system, or if it hasn’t it is about to be. Most science people move out jobs that directly use their technical skills within five years

9. STUDENT DIVERSITY Student numbers have more than doubled in 30 years. Science has not retained student patronage in proportion (Chemistry static, physics fallen by 1/3) We are not catering to students who, as in 1970, will either do research, teach or be applied scientists. The vast majority of our students are not destined to become ‘traditional’ scientists.

10. WHO IS THINKING ABOUT THIS? What signals does the System send about: • The importance of labwork for a science education, especially for beginning students • The value placed on student participation in labwork • The value placed on delivery of lab classes • The outcomes expected for students

11. Sampling the System Data collected on first year lab classes from 9 different universities: Three different types of university, to explore institutional diversity Three different disciplines, to explore discipline diversity

12. Pattern of Data Collection Go8 IRU ITN X X X Biology X X X Physics X X X Chemistry

13. Interviews • department heads &topic coordinators • demonstrators • students • support staff • Laboratory observation • Laboratory manuals • Ethics: • Issues of : • risk & benefit • consent Data Collection

14. Reconceptualising Science Education Dewey (Pragmatist Philosophers) Hands on experience is essential for learning and knowing Science as the epitome of real knowledge and knowing

15. Reconceptualising Science Education Induction into what science is about:- • Conceptual systems that explain the observable world • Revelation of unseen worlds that explain the day to day world • Postulation of unseen worlds that explain the observable one Can you really grasp these things without laboratory experience?

16. A Student View When they like present information like in the lecture it like they see the organism doing things and it is really obvious why. Then when we actually do in the lec-, labclass sorry, you can see how it actually could be thousands of different possibilities. In the lecture it sort of seems simple - obvious - if it does this it is this. In the lab you realise, how it has been such an argumentative process to get to the information that we have now.

17. Well, we'll do the one of where I work out what soil type it is [a different subject]. If I hadnt done the prac, hadn't had someone saying to me "squash it in your fingers and tell me if it feels soapy or silky or gritty or". I guess you could get that out of a book but doing it in class, I think you learned what to expect. Whereas if you were at home you wouldnt have someone at home, I dont know, to ask, is this the sort of thing that should be happening.

18. Reconceptualising Science Education Only students articulated these ideas. Demonstrators and course co-ordinators did not These were mature-age well thought out students The more typical student view was

19. Reconceptualising Science Education Don’t see how the practice of being able to dribble something into something else and turn it into something else and turn it into something else makes any difference to your ability to understand the theory and the equations. Its all very nice and pretty and makes people happy.... If I was going down a chemistry strand, then it would be different ... it just seems to a lot of pressure.

20. Purpose of the Lab Experience • No consensus on the role and purpose of labs, esp at entry level • No learning objectives for laboratory work overall - [there are for the course, and for individual experiments]

21. Connection between Labs and Theory No agreement on the nature or importance of the connection. Lab programs running independently of lectures have no separate learning objectives

22. Reconceptualising Laboratory Experience Educationists (Goodrum, Tytler, …) Hands on experience essential for student engagement and interest. A key element in student directed and student centred learning

23. Labs as Learning Environment Generic Skills Generally fail to capture any scientific flavour no system to identify and value them.

24. Labs as Learning Environment Group Work Only one place designed lab work so that it could not be done except by a group Much lab work militated against group work by emphasing individual technique Group work in a lab environment is very different to group work in say, humanities and social sciences. No-one seems to capitalise on this.

25. Labs as Learning Environment Mistake making Poorly supported Response is very demonstrator dependent Usually undermined by highly structured ‘recipe lab’ approach

26. Organisational Structure Demonstrator induction • varies widely • Usually about ‘housekeeping’ (OHS etc) • Doesn’t support overall learning objectives (which aren’t articulated anyway) Lab delivery by more junior staff. Experiments devised by more senior or absent staff Little communication or empowerment Often weak departmental co-ordination