{"id":817,"date":"2010-04-08T21:02:21","date_gmt":"2010-04-08T09:02:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2010\/04\/live_from_the_nz_international\/"},"modified":"2010-04-08T21:02:21","modified_gmt":"2010-04-08T09:02:21","slug":"live-from-the-nz-international","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.waikato.ac.nz\/bioblog\/2010\/04\/live-from-the-nz-international\/","title":{"rendered":"live from the nz international biology olympiad training camp"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today & tomorrow I’m down in Wellington. This year Victoria University is hosting the training camp for New Zealand’s Biology Olympiad<\/a> aspirants, but I got invited to come down & help out at some of the lab classes. Which is great, because I don’t want to lose contact with the IBO organisation (or the the wider umbrella group. Science OlympiaNZ<\/a>).<\/p>\n

For me, the highlight of these training camps (which up until this year were hosted at Waikato <\/del>Waikato & UniTech) is the interaction with a bunch of gifted and talented young New Zealanders. But I also value the opportunity to talk with the rest of the team of dedicated individuals who make the camps possible. This afternoon I had a lengthy session with my friend Angela Sharples<\/a>, who leads the Biology organising team & is also Chair of the Science OlympiaNZ Council. One of the things up for discussion was the question: what do universities gain from their association with the movement?  After all, we’re talking fairly small numbers of students here – 19 at this year’s camp – and they’re not all going to go on to study at the host institution. And these camps do cost a lot to run, in terms of materials, resources, & staff time.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

One obvious benefit is the positive impact the association has on the university’s profile with schools and teachers who are involved in the program. (Personally I think all<\/i> secondary schools should be encouraging their top students to apply for an Olympiad – there are significant benefits to be had by doing so. This is probably most obvious for smaller schools, where you might have only a few students working at this level – it can be hard to find the time & resources to support them, & the students might well feel a bit isolated. If they’re selected for the Olympiad tutorial system, a whole new level of material & coaching becomes available to them, & they also become part of a wider group of like-minded students.) So even if only a few, or no, students from an IBO camp come to the host uni, nonetheless their teachers & peers will hear all about it, & that may help shape future study decisions.<\/p>\n

But I think there’s another, & arguably more significant gain to be had for the universities. And this has to do with how well we ‘bridge’ our to the academic life of the institution. I know from Waikato’s hosting experience that the teachers involved are always very happy to talk about curriculum, assessment, syllabi & so on, and what is & isn’t available to students in their classrooms in terms of resources like microscopes & various bits of apparatus. This means that the academics involved in the camps gain an understanding of what they can expect from their students: what they’ve studied (& haven’t studied) for the various Achievement Standards; what sort of assessment practices they’ve been exposed to; & so on. (And make no mistake – there can be a real gulf between what lecturers assume about students’ prior learning, and what those students have actually done.) This can then shape what & how we teach in our first-year classrooms, which can enhance the students’ learning & also their overall experience of tertiary study. And that in turn can have a positive effect on their progression to subsequent study in a particular discipline, & the successful completion of that study. (And that, at a time when the government has signalled it’s moving to a funding model that takes completion & retention rates into consideration, is surely a significant benefit to the institution.)<\/p>\n

And in the long term… well, I share Angela’s dream on this one. It would be great to see our top academic students valued & supported in the same way as our sporting teams. (As it is, the various Olympian movements have in the past operated on the smell of an oily rag, & their teams’ considerable successes on the world stage have been supported by those dedicated, selfless teachers who put in hours & hours of hard work for free, on top of their ‘day’ jobs – & by students’ families, who put time & effort  & money into supporting them. The Science OlympiaNZ came into being through the extremely generous and very-much-appreciated support of the Todd Foundation, & it would be wonderful if other funding bodies could also come on board.)<\/p>\n

Given the adulation awarded to successful national sporting teams, I suspect this may require something of a culture shift! But we need<\/i> our top students to take science & technology at school, we need them to study these subjects at university & go on into related careers. We have to move beyond the farm & the theme park<\/a>. And while they may well go overseas at some point to continue & extend their studies – & in fact I think this is a really Good Thing – we really really<\/i> need them to come back to New Zealand and continue their careers here. And – if we have a system in place that sees this happening; that recognises, encourages, & rewards studying in the sciences & in technology; that sees rising levels of science literacy across the board – then everyone’s a winner. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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