SiMERR Final Report: Victorian Hub overview
Overview of findings
It is difficult to pull together the findings from these projects into a coherent whole, given the variation in intent and scope. However, a few points can be made under the theme headings.
The projects focusing on professional learning gave some on-the-ground insights into the patterns of responses found in the national survey to questions of teacher professional disadvantage and teacher supply, for rural schools. Problems of distance, difficulties in communication, and resource and other implications of size, were identified as barriers to professional growth and satisfaction. Teachers were disadvantaged in access to PD that was subject-specific, by the focus on generic PD required by small size, communication, and also government priorities. This issue of the need for teachers to access others in their discipline underpinned the network arrangements embodied in the various projects: the intensive workshop followed by school visits and network meetings in the AISV project, or the linking of university faculties and local schools in a large event, in the SW Victoria sustainability conference. The use of ICT has been mooted as a potential answer to these communication problems associated with size and distance, but two projects – the science challenge using online mentoring and the AISV project which used a blog as one means of ongoing follow up, show the difficult of depending on these approaches, given teachers’ busy lives.
The projects involving school and community are also an attempt to alleviate this sense of professional isolation, by enlisting science/ICT/mathematics professionals from the community to interact with students and teachers in a partnership arrangement. The PD pathways project identified schools which were using community links effectively to support and extend teachers, and the ASISTM innovation exemplar and school community SiMERR projects showed very clearly the sense of professional renewal that was possible when teachers work in partnership with community based professionals, as well as the advantage for students. This possibility was also evident in the Sustainability conference, and in the Science Challenge which is now expanding in scope. Part of the impetus driving these explorations is the realisation that rural schools are in a particularly good position to develop partnerships with local community and industry since community resources are more visible and accessible in rural settings. Some of the studied projects focused specifically on developing students’ knowledge of career opportunities in science, technology and mathematics in the local area, as a foil to the common presumption that these are mainly available in cities.
The three sustainability projects emphasised the importance of sustainability issues in rural settings, and the potential for this focus to be an important component of a meaningful science education in rural / coastal settings.
Impact of the hub’s activities
The descriptions of the 13 hub activities above emphasise the outputs of these projects, listing conference presentations, journal articles, and reports targeting government policy directions. SiMERR Victoria, situated as it is in a very productive research group with a history of policy involvement in Victorian Science and Mathematics Education, has pursued these projects with a view to influencing policy and practice. Impacts from the work of the hub include:
- A submission on PD for rural teachers of science, ICT and mathematics to a Victorian parliamentary inquiry on PD
- A presentation of the findings of the IMYMS project to the Victorian DEECD
- Support from the Victorian DEECD in terms of funding and policy presence, at the SiMERR forum, which will be followed up by a meeting to discuss the recommendations
- The tendering and acceptance of the DEEWR funded project on Innovation Exemplars from ASISTM, that followed on from the SiMERR study
- The setting up of a committee of industry and university members to establish a science challenge, which is now underway, involving rural schools and students
- The evaluation leading to refinement of a successful PD model for ICT in dispersed and small rural independent schools, which lead to significant ICT outcomes for teachers and students
- Substantial learning gains and teacher pedagogical change in the ARC IMYMS funded project
- Significant engagement and learning for school students and their teachers from the Sustainability conference, and establishment of links between university faculties and local schools
- The development and submission of at least two ARC linkage proposals as a result of SiMERR projects
