Introducing Curtin University and SMEC

Curtin University of Technology is Western Australia’s largest tertiary institution with six campuses. The central Bentley campus is set on 112 hectares of landscaped parkland six kilometres south of the centre of Perth. Named after former Australian Prime Minister John Curtin (1941–1945), Curtin has a long–standing reputation in the international market and is recognised as a pioneer in the provision of international education. Curtin’s strength lies in its international orientation, the responsiveness of its programs to national and workplace needs and its promotion of cultural diversity and lifelong learning. Today, the University has an enrolment of more than 29,000 students including 9,000 international students from almost 70 countries, and offers in excess of 850 undergraduate and postgraduate courses.

Bentley campus offers a wide range of facilities, including restaurants and cafés, bookshops, retail outlets, clubs, theatres, markets, sporting facilities and a world–class art gallery.

The Science and Mathematics Education Centre (SMEC) began approximately 25 years ago within the Division of Engineering, Science and Computing as Curtin’s only exclusively postgraduate teaching area. Its mission is to undertake excellent research and to offer world–leading postgraduate programs that provide continuing professional development for science and mathematics educators at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels (including educators in informal settings such as science museums). SMEC’s growth was accelerated by the award of the Australian Research Council (ARC) Key Centre for School Science and Mathematics (Especially for Women), which was funded during 1988–96 and whose title continues today. Currently SMEC enjoys the status of one of Curtin’s elite University Research Institutes. With over 400 current postgraduate students (mainly part–time), including 300 doctoral students, SMEC now has the largest postgraduate program in the world in science and mathematics education.

SMEC’s approach emphasises the inter–relatedness of supervision, research and teaching. The Centre views its supervision of theses as closely linked to excellence in both teaching and research. For example, many of the graduates have become cutting–edge researchers in fields such as learning environments, professional development, concept learning, use of analogies, and qualitative methods of enquiry. Furthermore, there is a belief in SMEC that supervision excellence derives from staff conducting research into their own supervision and teaching practice. The teaching staff are renowned world leaders in their research areas and students are given up–to–date supervision through encouragement to be involved in the research process through attending national and international conferences and publishing with their supervisors.

The unique and innovative nature of SMEC’s approach to postgraduate education can be summarised in the following points:

provision of two innovative professional doctorates (in addition to the PhD)
provision of flexible access to doctoral studies for part–time students who reside interstate or overseas
development of ’nodes’ of doctoral students in interstate and overseas locations (i.e. communities of learners who meet regularly for mutual support and face–to–face contact with Curtin–based staff and local Adjunct staff)
provision of unique ’institutes’ in local, interstate and
overseas locations (i.e. doctoral coursework and thesis classes taught by Curtin staff as concentrated short courses at times convenient to students)
development and use of an online monograph to help students write their research proposal
extensive use of information technology to maintain contact with students and to deliver coursework to distant students
involvement of students with staff in publishing and presenting research at national and international conferences
strong commitment of staff to their own research areas enabling them to provide relevant up–to–date advice to students
very good external thesis examination results

In a report to Curtin’s Executive Dean of Humanities in September 2001, Professor Simon Marginson of Monash University made the following comments:

SMEC brings great credit to Curtin. Any university in the world would be pleased to house a centre of this calibre. Few units in Australia, in any field, deserve this accolade.
SMEC’s record as a specialised centre for doctoral training and research must be very satisfying. ...This is probably the best performed unit in education in any Australian university. SMEC has not just generated superior performance, it has been particularly effective in tailoring its activities to contemporary performance requirements, including the generation of non– DETYA income and the creation of global nodes and networks. Its staff are world leaders in the field.
SMEC has generated a phenomenal number of doctoral students through its international nodes. It is hard to overstate SMEC’s achievement in its doctoral program. ...Despite the high supervision workloads carried by SMEC staff, graduation rates and student satisfaction are very high. Many SMEC graduates have positions in universities around the world.
(Marginson, 2001)

The Science and Mathematics Education Centre at Curtin caters for the needs of huge numbers of high–calibre research students, provides a high–quality learning environment, and supports and promotes research areas that are excellent and of national and international importance. SMEC has a large, internationally–recognised and dedicated team of researchers who specialise and cooperate in research and graduate studies in science and mathematics education. The unusually high commitment to research among the staff is demonstrated by their research track records for over a decade, their success in building the world’s largest doctoral program in science and mathematics education, and the overall success of SMEC.