News

Associate Professor Misty Jenkins BSc (Hons), PhD, MAICD

The Science Teachers’ Association of Victoria (STAV) is proud to announce the appointment of Associate Professor Misty Jenkins BSc (Hons), PhD, MAICD, to the honorary role of STAV Patron.

Misty Jenkins is a NHMRC fellow and laboratory head in the Immunology Division at Walter and Eliza Hall Institute for Medical Research, where she researches cellular immunology and cancer immunotherapy. 

Misty studied her PhD in Immunology at The University of Melbourne, followed by postdoctoral positions at The Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, and The Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Melbourne. She has a long-standing interest in how a specialized group of white blood cells, CD8⁺ T cells, kill cancer. Her current research program currently researches the use of T cell immunotherapy for brain cancer.

Associate Professor Jenkins was awarded the L’Oreal for Women in Science Fellowship (2013), was Tall Poppy of the year (2015), was awarded the Westpac/Australian Financial Review Top100 Women of Influence award (2016) in recognition for her significant contribution to science and gender equity.

Associate Professor Jenkins has been a strong advocate for diversity and inclusion in academia over the past decade and her efforts in this area have been recognized nationally and internationally. In addition to her research career, Associate Professor Jenkins is experienced in governance and is a Board Director for Monash Health, Co-Chair of the Indigenous Health Medical Research Future Fund.

Misty’s commitment to scientific research, her passion for discovery, her dedication to matters of social justice, and her transformative advocacy work regarding equity of access to the worlds of science and science education are cause for admiration and celebration. For these reasons, Misty’s appointment as STAV Patron is of great significance to STAV and its members.

STAV has a long history of shaping and influencing policy and representing and advancing the collective voice of science teachers across Victoria since 1943. STAV is committed to providing opportunities for all Victorian students of science to become inspired by and engaged with the learning of science and STEM. On behalf of its members, STAV is committed to providing Science education for all and is actively seeking to address the barriers to participation in Science learning including disadvantaged and underrepresented cohorts. STAV acknowledges that Science education is critically important for Australia’s current and future productivity, its social cohesion and that a scientifically literate society is pivotal to building better outcomes for all Australians.

We welcome Misty to the STAV family and look forward to working with her to promote the collective voice of science teachers across the state and to advance science education for all.

Alexandra Abela

STAV President

Former STAV Patrons

STAV has a long history of appointing those of eminence as its Patron. Former STAV Patrons include: Lord Casey (1970-1976), Sir Henry Winneke (1977-1982), Sir Brian Murray (1983-1985), Professor Sir Gustav Nossal (1995-1998), Emeritus Professor Peter Fensham (1999-2001), Professor Suzanne Cory (2005-2007) and Dr Barry Jones (2013-2020).

Meet our 2020 STAV STEM Ambassador – Felicity Furey

We are delighted that Felicity Furey has agreed to be the inaugural STAV STEM Ambassador to support STAV in its mission to represent the collective voice of science and STEM educators in Victoria.

Felicity’s inspiration to forge a career in engineering came from physics teacher. After seeing the lack of diversity in STEM careers, Felicity became passionate about inspiring the next generation into STEM, just like her teacher inspired for her.

Named Boss Magazine’s Young Executive of The Year and one of AFR’s 100 Women of Influence at just 26 years of age, Felicity’s led multi-million dollar engineering projects, founded two successful businesses, Power of Engineering and Machinam which have reached more than 10,000 students, secured partnerships with Qantas, Toyota and Energy Australia.

In this role as STEM Ambassador for STAV Felicity aims to increase advocacy and inspiration for STEM careers and build visibility and drive needed for cultural and social change for gender equity in STEM. Felicity, pictured below, aims to contribute to STAVs high-quality professional learning for teachers and connect industry and the real world into the classroom.

Alexandra Abela

STAV President

Click here further details

Details available from the VCAA here

ASTA Media Release COVID-19 and Impact on Science Teachers

The Department of Education and Training has published a Learning From Home web page to provide advice to schools about how they can support learning continuity for children and young people during disruption caused by coronavirus (COVID-19) read more

Supporting the teaching of Science in times of remote learning: Highlighting the importance of Laboratory Technicians

With the declaration of the COVID-19 pandemic, the education landscape has become a vastly different space in a staggeringly short amount of time. The roles of all those working in schools have changed, as members of school communities work together to adapt to changing circumstances as they adopt new platforms, methodologies and pedagogies for the delivery of curriculum. As a practical subject, the remote teaching and learning of Science presents unique challenges, most of which are self-evident.

The following is taken from a recent media release of the Australian Science Teachers’ Association on COVID-19, in which ASTA President, Nathan Curnow states: ‘Whilst we celebrate how adaptable and resourceful science teachers can be, it is important to note that these changes have significant ramifications for teacher workload and efficacy as they do their best to support the learning of students’.

STAV Council endorses this statement and furthermore, unreservedly acknowledges the integral and specialist role that laboratory technicians play in enabling effective teaching and learning of the Sciences across all year levels.

STAV’s Mission and goals provide focus at this time:

• STAV represents and advances the collective voice of science educators to shape and influence policy in all aspects of science education.
• STAV aims to build the capacity of laboratory technicians, teachers, science coordinators, principals and system leaders, as agents for the improvement of all aspects of science teaching and learning.
• STAV advocates for and contributes to the improvement of the quality of science teaching andlearning through enhanced professional learning, resources and the promotion of professional best practice.

STAV encourages all members of school science departments to continue to work collaboratively and with agility at this at time. STAV acknowledges that the most visible aspects of the day-to-day role of laboratory technicians is being challenged. In spite of the changes to physical learning spaces, STAV strongly maintains that laboratory technicians are an integral part of the science program. The need for their expertise and support is all the more profound, and with the assistance of technology, the opportunities for innovation abound.

Laboratory technicians in schools are working to different guides in the support of remote learning. They are gathering, preparing and curating resources for science departments; preparing, conducting and recording demonstrations and experiments to be used by students remotely; collecting data via controlled experiments for analysis by students in assessment tasks; maintaining equipment, updating inventories, reforecasting budgets, conducting OH&S audits and maintaining and preparing risk assessment registers.

Laboratory technicians, given the nature of the role, are specialist, resourceful and adaptable. With the extra burden placed on teachers at this time, their support and drive are even more critical to attaining good learning outcomes for our science students. STAV urges schools to continue to foster the time-honoured collaboration and synergy between school Science teachers and laboratory technicians, so that we can better respond to the challenges before us as we navigate these complex times together.

Dale Carroll

STAV Councillor

Chair, Laboratory Technicians sub-committee

Alexandra Abela

STAV President

Dear STAV Individual and School Member,

I am writing to update you on STAV’s response to the rapidly and ever-evolving challenges presented by COVID-19.

STAV Office

STAV has taken and continues to take proactive steps to ensure the health and safety of its staff, volunteers, stakeholders and the broader community.

On Tuesday 24 March, the STAV Staff commenced working remotely after a period of trials in preparation for the likelihood of staff working from home. There has been a smooth transition to these working arrangements and we are well prepared as an organisation to ensure you continue to receive as uninterrupted a service as possible. All staff will continue to receive and respond to their emails as per normal practice. Should you be ordering any of our resources, you will continue to receive these and will be advised if there are any delays or otherwise.

Remote working arrangements will remain in place until such time that it is deemed safe by the relevant authorities.

In the interim, to ensure that you continue to receive uninterrupted service, you can contact the STAV Office via phone (03) 9385 3999; or via email: Natalija at admin@stav.vic.edu.au, Anne at stav@stav.vic.edu.au, and Violet at payments@stav.vic.edu.au.

Teacher Professional Learning

STAV Council has been monitoring advice from the Federal and State Governments on a regular basis, and will be meeting in the coming days to review the latest advice in so far as it impacts the conference program and methods of delivery. Planning for conferences scheduled to take place from July 2020 onwards, continues in earnest. Those which are currently under review are: the VCE Psychology workshop, Friday 22 May; STAV Lab Tech Conference, Friday 5 June; and STAV Science Leaders’ Conference, Friday 12 June. I will write to you to update you in due course.

STAV continues to work in collaboration with key stakeholders, including the VCAA. We have recently received some enquiries from members regarding additional support for remote delivery of the VCE. STAV will continue to forward relevant information to its members regarding announcements from the VCAA, and through expertise on STAV Council, will facilitate support of Victorian teachers in the coming weeks and months. Please check your STAV emails and social media regularly over the holiday period and weeks to follow.

Professional learning is a thread which connects all STAV working parties. As a STAV member, if you wish to contribute to what will be a massive effort, please contact me at president@stav.vic.edu.au Your support would be most welcome.

Teacher and Student Resources

As STAV members, you have access to our member access area. In this area you will locate current and past STAV publications. We are planning to develop this area further, so that in conjunction with STAV’s regular email bulletins and posts on our social media, you will be able to have access to additional advice.

You will have noticed that we took the unprecedented decision to make our first quarter journals for 2020, LFO and LabTalk, freely available to all. This decision has been met with favour. We understand that those in schools require additional support at this time and STAV is committed to facilitating all forms of communication and connectedness across the state.

As previously communicated, the office will be closed over the Easter break from Tuesday 9 April to Monday 13 April inclusive.

STAV Publishing continues to provide access to valuable assessment materials in the form of past and current practice examination materials. You are able order all STAV Publishing resources online.

A rich source of project-based curriculum materials for remote learning is The Science Talent Search (STS). The current STS handbook is available on the website. The STS PD Kit will be shared with you when you place an email request with STS Coordinator, Janice Teng, sts@stav.vic.edu.auOur STS PD Kit is free of charge and contains advice universal to most forms of project-based learning, as well as examples of past student projects. STS assessment rubrics for each of the competition categories and student self-assessment checklists are available here.

And a variety of other resources are available to support students and teachers at the following links: http://www.sciencevictoria.com.au/sts/forTeachers.html http://www.sciencevictoria.com.au/sts/forStudentParent.html

If you have any queries regarding STS registration and/or support materials, please contact Janice. Registrations for the current year’s competition are open, with all judging having been moved online.

I also encourage you to make further use of your STAV membership by accessing the ASTA website and its resources. ASTA is currently looking into moving its journal, Teaching Science, online and one vital resource in these times is Science ASSIST. If you are not yet registered for Science ASSIST enews, I strongly encourage you to do so as the advice being provided on OH&S and practical work is second to none. 

In closing, please know that your membership is of vital importance to STAV. STAV leadership, Council, volunteers and Staff have worked tirelessly these past few weeks, and will continue to do so to ensure the continuation of services to our members and to Science education more broadly. I thank all who give of their time for their efforts and unwavering dedication. STAV is only as strong as its membership and we ask you to consider suggesting STAV Individual membership to colleagues at this time. We are a profession blessed with secure work at this time but one that is faced with unique challenges. It is vital that we band together to meet these challenges.

On behalf of STAV Council, I would like to ask all our community to stay safe and to work with us to support our diverse and strong community of practice.

I will provide further updates in due course. In the mean-time, if you wish to contact me directly, please feel free to do so: president@stav.vic.edu.au

Stay safe and well, and enjoy some rest during the holiday break.

Alexandra Abela

STAV President