ACDS Fellowship update

We have been hard at work, giving talks and facilitating workshops. Some key messages arising from workshop interactions and discussions:

• CER-STEM is a conceptual framework with resources that prompt and enable scholarship.
• It can be used to organise STEM degree teaching teams and support them collaborate in embedding scholarship into their everyday teaching work.
• Natural data (the broad and varied range of data generated by students and teachers during activities intended to educate) is already collected, analysed and interpreted to identify quality improvement (QI) opportunities and report against quality assurance (QA) standards.
• A scholarly approach to QI and QA is important for effective curriculum and teaching outcomes (e.g. drawing on and referring to literature when designing a QI intervention and ensuring evidence for evaluating its impact).
• Natural data and the outputs of QI and QA activities (e.g. reflection and analysis embedded in an annual course report) can be linked and leveraged within a scholarly framework to generate a range of scholarship outcomes (including, but not limited to, publications).

From our travel diary

October: A presentation at the ACSME conference was followed by a workshop at the conference Discipline Day. Jo visited UNSW and Tina ran a workshop for WSU. Jo flew to Perth to deliver workshops for UWA, Murdoch and Curtin universities. Tina and Jo also presented at the ACDS AGM.

November: Tina travelled to South Australia to deliver a workshop at Adelaide University. Jo and Tina spoke on: ‘Distributed Leadership to Embed Scholarship in STEM Teaching Teams’ at the TEQSA conference in Melbourne.

December: Tina and Jo delivered a series of very successful workshops in Victoria at Federation, Deakin, La Trobe and Swinburne universities.

Our new website

In September we launched our CER STEM website. The website is designed for easy access to our growing list of resources. The ‘Resources’ web pages include a host of templates, examples and advice to reduce effort by teaching teams to use the CER-STEM framework. These include an example human research ethics application and supporting documents (e.g. example information sheets) that can be used as a starting point for information and answers to questions required by your Human Research Ethics Committee.

The CER-STEM website also includes information about the CER-STEM framework, Tina and Jo’s ACDS fellowship and details about how teaching teams can use the framework to embed scholarship in STEM teaching teams.

Get involved

We will continue to run workshops and presentations throughout Australia through 2020. If you are interested in the CER-STEM framework, it’s not too late to register your interest in attending or organising a workshop. We are happy to tailor a program to your needs, including via online delivery. To find out more, visit our website or email us at cer-stem@utas.edu.au

Tina Acuña and Jo-anne Kelder