President’s Message
and measurements, but there is also a greater emphasis on
teaching students how to develop their own questions. It is
an essential question to ask ourselves, “How should we teach
this?” Otherwise we are expecting our students to come up with
questions on their own without proper examples and essential
preparation!
Margaret Shepherd
President STANSW
Our STANSW Young Scientist Awards program culminated with
an amazing awards ceremony at the University of Wollongong.
This year there were many improved projects entered into
the program and many stage 6 depth studies were awarded
recognition for their work. Keep up the great work and next year
submit your best ten projects and send in one teacher to help
judge the projects. It is great PD.
I would like to welcome a new member to the STANSW staff this
term. Jane Powles is our new Executive Officer and she brings a
wealth of experience, both working in not-for-profit associations
as well as managing and leading organisations through change.
She is passionate and warm, and is very much welcome to our
small secretariat. Her role description is available for members
by simply contacting me at [email protected].
This year as seen a review of our curriculum, and now the
Curriculum Review Interim Report has been released at https://
nswcurriculumreview.nesa.nsw.edu.au/home/siteAreaContent/
524abec1-f0f9-4ffd-9e01-2cc89432ad52 and is out for
discussion. Some of the proposed changes are good for us
e.g. reducing the content and removing A-E. These will allow us
to teach to a deeper level, and will stop the labelling students
have when told what grade they are. However, what about the
reduction in the number of courses? Is that going to impact on
science? Would we lose some of our courses? Please do have
your say so that STANSW can pass on a formal comment to
NESA. You can do this through the website link.
We have had support from Catherine Gray in the development
of both the role description and also the governance model, so
that Jane is supported in this new position. It will be a time of
change, but already we are seeing very positive and progressive
adjustments to the way we do things for our members. Jane has
written a short introduction about herself so please read it, and if
you want to talk with her at any time please email jane.powles@
stansw.asn.au
We are currently planning lots of exciting professional learning
for next year. Remember we are all volunteers, and we share
our time and expertise with each other and for each other. Our
secretariat makes it all happen at a high quality level, so please
share your own ideas. Go to our website at http://stansw.asn.au/
default.aspx?article_id=204 and make a proposal to present a
workshop at one of our Conferences next year. If you are teaching
anything that you know works effectively then let us know. We’d
love to hear from you.
So the year is ending with the first exams for our new syllabuses
and what exams they were! – rich in unfamiliar contexts and
stimulus material that students were required to wade through
under exam conditions. It is a lesson for all of us to give our
students more practice reading and analysing text; diagrams and
graphs; practising lots of different contexts; writing meaningful
sentences that are not filled with waffle; proofreading their own
work; expecting the unexpected; thinking outside the box; and of
course to use what they know to problem solve.
This is the time of year to thank everyone for all their support of
STANSW this year. We have so many generous teachers who
volunteer their time to share their knowledge and skills with all
our members. We cannot function without you and continue to
recognise and appreciate all that you do. Our association is run
by teachers for teachers so we look forward to seeing you and
working with you again in 2020.
All these many skills are enormous to try to fit into the syllabus but
it does make us recognise that we cannot simply teach content:
rather, it indicates that content may be taught better by way
of learning experiences. I ask all members to share their own
learning activities with other members. If you teach a lesson in
which students learn through using their skills, please send it to
our editor, [email protected] or submit it through
the website at www.stansw.asn.au. Please also include the
aspect of the syllabus that was being taught, and the rationale for
the activity. We really need to share our best ideas to help each
other. It would also be great to see your name in print, so that is
an added incentive for meeting the standard 7 and contributing
to your teaching association.
Many blessings for the Christmas season and wishes for a safe
and restful holiday. Looking forward to 2020.
Kindest regards,
As well as Stage 6 teaching we also need to revisit what we should
be teaching in years 7 – 10 and how best to do that. The obvious
change is the need to provide lots more quantitative observations
Margaret Shepherd
STANSW President
4
SCIENCE EDUCATIONAL NEWS VOL 68 NO 4