Three speakers at the Faculty during the first semester
Three teaching experts spoke at the Science Faculty during the first semester. Each of these lunch hour seminars was attended by roughly 20 staff members from the Faculty.
Denise Wood
On 20 March Prof Prof Denise Wood from the University of South Australia presented a seminar on “The pedagogical benefits of social media in learning and teaching“. Prof Wood has extensive experience in the use of accessible information and communication technologies (ICTs) to increase social participation, as well as the pedagogical benefits of social media in learning and teaching.
Her international research includes projects in South Africa where she is collaborating with the Gauteng and Limpopo Provincial Governments on a project involving an investigation of the use of accessible ICTs to enhance student learning and increase student retention in rural and semi-rural special needs schools, and the US, where she is collaborating with Professor Gregg Vanderheiden at the Trace Centre at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on a project which aims to make ICTs accessible and adaptable to the specific needs of the user through an open source solution.
Prof Jenni Case
On 15 April Prof Jenni Case from UCT spoke about “Science Teaching for the 21st Century“. Professor Jenni Case is an education researcher who specialises in university level science and engineering education, focusing especially on understanding how to improve the participation and success of students from a diverse range of backgrounds.
She holds a BSc(Hons) degree in Chemistry from the University of Stellenbosch, as well as an MEd from the University of Leeds, an MSc from the University of Cape Town, and a PhD in Education from Monash University. She holds a post focusing on academic development in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Cape Town (UCT) and is Assistant Dean in the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment. She teaches in the undergraduate chemical engineering programme and in 2007 she was awarded the UCT Distinguished Teachers’ Award. She has recently been elected the founding president of the Society for Engineering Education of South Africa (SEESA). Her research on the student experience of learning has been widely published, with 35 peer-reviewed journal publications.
Judy Paterson
On 22 April, Judy Paterson from the University of Auckland spoke on “Team Based Learning (TBL) in the Computational Sciences: What might this mode of delivery offer?” Prof Paterson is a mathematics educator who has worked with three mathematicians and a statistician as they changed the mode of delivery of their courses to Team-Based Learning (TBL). She discussed their implementation of this model of delivery.
She used examples they have developed in combinatorics, dynamical systems, probability and mathematics education courses to illustrate the potential they believe TBL has to encourage student engagement and thinking in lectures. Their research indicates that TBL has the potential to stimulate both student and lecturer learning. More about TBL www.teambasedlearning.org/
Themocracy
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