Page 18 - Journal 2018A

SASTA Annual General Meeting
Paul liaised with DECD and created the “Science Course Hub”, which is a Moodle site in which SACE Science teachers from SA & NT can contribute and share resources and currently has 260+ members from public and private schools.
He is a positive role model for other teachers of science at Marryatville High School and has shared STEM teaching methodologies, support teachers in the online delivery of their course and continues to expand the site’s digital science equipment and provide support to those staff to incorporate it into their teaching methodology.
Dina Phan, Swallowcliffe Primary School
Dina is the specialist science teacher at Swallowcliffe Primary School and engages students R-7, enthusiastically in weekly science lessons.
Dina is a regular attendee at the SASTA Early Career Teachers Conference and SASTA Annual Conference and has been a presenter at both conferences and also attended the
2018 STEM X professional learning activity in Canberra. She is a facilitator of the Northern Science PLC, a voluntary group of teachers in the northern suburbs of Adelaide interested in teaching science and through this group she mentors early career teachers.
As Children’s University Australia coordinator, Dina provides students with meaningful lessons by connecting with professional, working scientists (inviting into classroom, connecting via email/letters, Twitter). Dina
has been building up the team work, problem- solving, and critical thinking abilities of students through gami cation in the classroom. She also runs extra-curricular programs for students, which includes access to STEM
club and an annual Science Fair as part of the Science Week celebrations.
Dina shares materials and pedagogy she developed and discovered are useful in the classroom through an iPad App for managing multiple classes as a specialist teacher and has run teacher training sessions on a number of digital technologies.
The SASTA Annual General Meeting was held on Tuesday 17 April at the SASTA Annual Conference.
SASTA President, Vanessa Fay, presented the Annual Report on SASTA’s activities in 2017.
President’s Report
2017 was another
successful year for SASTA. The number of Primary Members, whether
they have Personal membership, School or Corporate membership, increased from 486 to 511. The number of teachers attached to School membership accounts increased from 534 to 660 giving a total membership of 1,171 teachers, up from 1020 in 2016.
Financially, we had a healthy surplus of approximately $153 000, which represents an increase from the previous year.
Our Events Coordinator, Becci van Schuilenburg, went on maternity leave on
the 16th of October, and Tegan McClean commenced as her full-time permanent replacement on the 7th of August, in time to work with the Oliphant Science Awards entries. Becci will return to work early next year in a part-time capacity.
Members would be aware that SASTA relies heavily upon the sale of its resources for income, and in particular from the sales of its study guides. In 2017, we diversi ed our income stream from resources with the publication
of SACE Stage 1 workbooks for biology, chemistry and physics, in order to coincide
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