Collaborative Redevelopment of a First Year Mentoring Program
Dr Christopher Coady
Academic staff and past Conservatorium Students Association mentors will work together to design a mentor training program and first year activity calendar. The project outcomes will be a mentor-training scheme, mentoring program and evaluation process run autonomously by the Conservatorium Students Association.

Mentoring Program for Health Sciences Students
Virginia Ricketts & Melanie Nguyen
A student-facilitated peer mentoring program for first year Bachelor of Health Sciences students. The program aims to enhance students’ senses of belonging, appreciation for diversity, teamwork skills and to improve student retention.

Mentoring for Social Inclusion – many hands shaping preferred futures
Dr Nigel Goodwin
Senior students mentoring first year student teachers when undertaking a social inclusion case study field project in educational and community contexts. The initial project outcomes include developing skills in recognising social inclusion issues in authentic contexts, elaborating strategies that are used to address those social inclusion issues, and critiquing the success or failure of those issues.

A Mentoring Scheme to Widen Participation in Medical Radiation Science
Dr Sarah Lewis
The Radiation Physics Mentoring (RPM) club is a collaboration between academic staff, 1st year students with physics backgrounds, and third year students with a good understanding of radiation physics and its clinical applications to support and encourage first year students with limited physics experience.

Peer Assisted Study Skills (PASS)
Lisa Happell
Implementation of PASS into the Faculty of Law, following a successful pilot in 2 subjects. Working collaboratively with the Business School. Sydney University Law Society and other Faculties in the division to design and implement a PASS program that will create inclusive, interactive and supportive learning environments for all students.

Mentoring Health Sciences Students: Facilitating Belongingness, Inclusion and Teamwork
Melanie Nguyen
This project evaluates the impact of the Health Sciences Mentoring Program on belongingness, appreciation for diversity, retention and teamwork skills. Quantitative and qualitative data will be collected through interviews and surveys.

Scaffolding for Clinical Success
Dr Alison Purcell
Development and piloting of a learning module for all first year Faculty of Health Sciences students to improve communication competence and assist students to succeed on work integrated learning placements.

The role of Work Integrated Learning in Widening Participation in International Business Higher Education
Sandra Seno-Alday
This project assesses the role of work integrated learning in fostering wider and deeper participation of both diverse student cohorts and the industry community in higher education.  Data will be collected via focus group discussions with students, and interviews with industry representatives higher education institutions experienced in work integrated learning. Questionnaires for students and industry will then be developed, and the data used to assess and enhance work integrated learning in International Business.

Collaborative Learning & Cultural Diversity: Improving inclusion and participation for disadvantaged musicians
Dr Goetz Richter
Three large ensemble projects involving 2nd and 3rd year Music Studies and Music Education students participating in ensemble workshops, rehearsals and performances. The ensembles will prepare an hour-long performance program to be presented at the Conservatorium and in a regional educational setting and / or in a socially disadvantaged area of Sydney.

Human Rights: 6 Principles for Curriculum Renewal in Health
Professor Stephanie Short
The project will instil knowledge, attitude and behaviours that are aligned with the six principles of human rights, in our curricula to positively affect the way our graduates engage in collaborative learning, health care professional practice and research. The six principles are respect, social justice, access, equal opportunity, non-segregation, and non-categorisation.

Widening Student Participation in Human Cellular Physiology
Dr Stuart Fraser
Renewal of the curricula in two units of study through 100% student inclusion in assessment design and implementation. Inclusion will be achieved by: real-time student-lecturer feedback using an audience response system; student-driven assessment and peer-assessment.

Food for thought: Understanding how Aussies eat and talk about food
Wendy Stuart-Smith and Katherine Jukic
Additional education sessions run during the first year of the Masters of Nutrition and Dietetics degree to increase students’ understanding of food supply and food habits in Australia, and to strengthen and consolidate counselling and communication skills.

Towards egalitarianism
Dr Maree Stenglin
This project explores two strategies for embedding literacy in a first year core unit in the Bachelor of Commerce. In addition to  modelling an exemplar in a lecture and deconstruction in a tutorial, the study involves discourse analysis of student writing, pre and post intervention, plus focus group research with students and markers.

Assessment of student needs in a large first year Psychology cohort
Dr Marianna Szabo
Collect detailed data from first year psychology students on student diversity, intentions, needs, expectations, academic skills, readiness, course contents, and challenges. The feedback will be used in semester 2 to inform changes to be curriculum and resources.

Informing curriculum development to support widening participation in the Faculty of Veterinary Science
Dr Corinna Klupiec
This project examines the influence of students’ educational and socio-demographic backgrounds on their experience of learning in the undergraduate degrees offered by the Faculty of Veterinary Science. Data will be collected via quantitative surveys and interviews.

Reactions to diversity among medical students engaged in patient centred learning: An evaluation of diversity training in the ‘My Patient’ curriculum renewal program
Dr Kimberley Ivory
The project aims to:

• Assess existing levels of cultural diversity understanding in our student population and consider ways we might harness this to enrich future My Patient curriculum and inform the development of cultural diversity curriculum for the entire Sydney medical program
• Identify students’ learning needs around working with diversity
• Learn more about our students as learners and how this may be impacted by their past training or cultural origins
• Assess the impact of medical culture and the role of the ‘hidden curriculum,’ on students’ attitudes to working with and within cultural diversity

Student Diversity: What do we know about our students and how does it affect our teaching?
Dr Meloni Muir
The project will investigate staff knowledge of their students’ diversity and how that information impacts on their teaching practices. A new online scale to measure academic staff awareness of student diversity will be developed. Business and Science staff will receive summaries of student diversity data extracted from FlexSIS at the beginning of each semester. At the end of each semester, staff will be asked complete an online questionnaire to assess if, and how, they used this information in their teaching and curriculum design.

Investigating exclusion in the Faculty through research of the first year experience and student attrition
Associate Professor Judy Anderson
This project aims to find out more about our students during first year, particularly their reasons for considering or choosing to withdraw from study. With a significant number of students shown to be first in their family to attend university enrolled in the Faculty of Education and Social Work, this project offers an opportunity for the Faculty to better understand the diversity of our students and to develop strategies to better support them.

The effect of higher education on the future social participation opportunities of children with poor health
Emily Callander
Higher education may have the potential to mitigate the impacts of childhood disability, and assist these disadvantaged children overcome the limitations of ill health and lead productive lives in adulthood. This project will analyse a longitudinal dataset to assess the impact of higher education on the labour force participation of individuals who suffered a childhood disability.

Embedding Experiential, Contact-Based, Cultural Intelligence in Management Education: A common-ground specific approach
Dr Brent MacNab
Students engaged in management education will undertake an experiential cultural intelligence education process that includes the establishment of mutually-agreed, tangible goals (between student project groups and external cultural community members). The project examines to what degree the establishment of specified, tangible goals with external contact communities enhances the intended Cultural Intelligence educational development cycle versus approaches that have implicit, more intangible goals.

Taking a longer view of widening participation: toward a history of social inclusion in higher education in Sydney, c. 1945-1975
Hannah Forsyth
This historical study of the impact of past social inclusion strategies compares two universities (University of Sydney and UNSW) in two key decades to evaluate social inclusion strategies over a longer timeframe – enough time to offer a real understanding of their impact.

Increasing Indigenous students in higher education: Is participation in sport associated with academic achievement and higher education aspirations among Indigenous students?
Dr Louisa Peralta
The project explores the educational goals and aspirations of local (urban) adolescent Indigenous students participating in talented and elite sporting programs and their awareness of pathways into higher education and support provided by the University of Sydney.

 ‘Coming in mid-stream’  - accelereated entry programs as a social inclusion initiative: the BSW Exemplar
Dr Rosalie Pockett
The project evaluates the Accelerated Entry program for the Bachelor of Social Work, which commenced in 2006. The research will evaluate the impact of accelerated entry pathways as a social inclusion strategy and will have wider University relevance as they are adopted in other programs and Faculties.

Inspired by Business student support program in Sydney University’s Business School
Sarah Fletcher
Inspired by Business is a pilot flexible entry program for students from identified low socioeconomic status backgrounds. The project will provide a dedicated pastoral support program to ensure successful transition, retention and study experience success.

Evaluating the impact of community-university partnership on career aspirations for disadvantaged students in remote NSW: promoting educational attainment through community engaged service led learning
Debra Jones and Associate Professor Chris Roberts
The project seeks to explore the ways in which an innovative and growing community-university partnership can impact on the personal, contextual and experiential factors that shape rural and remote students’ interest, choice, motivations and careers aspirations in Far West NSW. The project also seeks to understand community and university partner perspectives on further developing the model across school education and service learning models.

2012 Indigenous Australian Engineering Summer School
Dr Doug Auld
In January 2012, approximately 20 Indigenous students from around Australia will be involved in engineering activities, site visits and social and cultural activities.

Challenging students to engage with IT
Dr Tara Murphy
This project builds on the success of the National Computer Science Schools Challenge, an online programming competition in which 2000 students participate each year. The Challenge will be extended to make it more accessible for socio-economically and geographically disadvantaged students, allowing them to have a positive experience of IT in a friendly and well-supported online learning environment. In this pilot the team will work closely with 3-5 schools to make the Challenge more accessible, including via increased online mentoring by undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Support  for teachers from rural and low socioeconomic high schools to attend the Science Teachers’ Workshop 2012
Lucy Buxton
The Science Teachers’ Workshop is a series of professional development courses designed to assist teachers in specific aspects of HSC syllabus, offer opportunities to hear about latest research related to the syllabus, and a chance for teachers to get hands-on experience with tools and techniques not necessarily available in their schools. This project provides financial support for up to 10 teachers from rural or low socioeconomic status schools to attend the Science Teachers’ workshop in 2012.

Kickstart on the Road
Tom Gordon
The School of Physics Kickstart outreach program is a very successful set of workshops for NSW HSC students, delivered at the university by physics undergraduate, honours and PhD students, and postdoctoral researchers. Kickstart on the Road will involve three 2-3 day workshops in the regional NSW centres of Armidale, Dubbo and Wagga Wagga.

Targeted extension to understand and develop aspirations for tertiary education in natural resource management among students from rural and regional areas
Dr Andrew Merchant
A systematic program designed to increase low socioeconomic, rural and regional students’ aspirations and participation in tertiary education. Academic staff will be encouraged to ‘adopt a school’ and, together with student ambassadors, make at least two visits to the school to carry out extension activities. At the end of the year-long project, students from the adopted schools will be invited to the USyd campus for a one-day familiarisation program.

Music learning through community service
Dr James Renwick
In a new service learning Unit of Study, Sydney Conservatorium of Music undergraduate students will plan a program for enhancing music in a school and work with students and staff at the school to prepare for a performance at the Conservatorium. The unit of study builds on existing partnerships with Bexley Public School, Marrickville West Public School and Kogarah High School.

Ecological research for primary students in nature’s classroom: Bringing the University to the community
Associate Professor Dieter Hochuli
This project endeavours to bring the university to the community through an innovative program of environmental education linking university research and teaching to the K-6 primary curriculum. Developing materials permitting children to undertake research assessing biodiversity in their local environments, the work generates valuable data on ecological integrity for local bushland.

Widening participation in the Faculty of Veterinary Science
Dr Melanie Collier
The Faculty of Veterinary Science seeks to engage in-person and through Connected Classroom technology with the school communities from the Camden (Macarthur) area, low SES schools and schools from rural areas to increase study in HSC science subjects and to prepare students for participation in higher education in the science area.

Widening participation in the Humanities: Expanding partnerships with low-SES and rural schools to foster aspiration and achievement
Dr Michael McDonnell
Building on the successful initiative of the History Department to create new partnerships with low SES schools, teachers and students, this project will expand this to include English and Gender & Cultural Studies. Working consultatively with an increased network of prioritised partner schools, the team will create a program of learning modules designed for on and off-campus delivery. These modules will focus on syllabus-related content and developing transferable skills to improve the academic preparation of potential students.

Footbridge to Participation project
Dr Margot Rawsthorne
This collaborative project seeks to familiarise Glebe social housing residents with the university, encourage students to develop educational aspirations and to disturb assumptions about the potential of disadvantaged students. The project builds on the current ‘Uni in a Day’ program for all Year 5 and 6 students from Glebe Primary School by expanding the program to other schools, developing pre and post classroom activities and following up with students as they move through schooling.

Developing students’ motivation in science through teaching by inquiry
Dr Louise Sutherland
This project targets students in disadvantaged schools by building their teachers’ and future teachers’ understanding of teaching science through inquiry. It will develop new partnerships by developing a collaborative framework around pre-service and in-service teachers, and members of the Faculties of Science and Education and Social Work.