Secondary teachers’ participation in STEM professional development: Challenges and opportunities

Judy Anderson & Gaye Williams

Governments and school systems are investing resources into science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education to address perceived shortages in these fields in university enrolments as well as in the workforce. Many initiatives have been implemented to capitalise on the increased focus on the STEM subjects in schools with universities frequently leading the way by offering engaging and worthwhile programs for students and teachers to promote the STEM subjects. However, many of these programs are “one off” or “once a year” events for small numbers of students in participating schools, potentially having little ongoing impact on the larger cohort of students in each school. A different initiative provides ongoing professional learning for teams of teachers of all STEM subjects from a small number of schools and focuses not just on improving pedagogy in each of the subject areas but encourages teachers to work in teams to design integrated approaches to curriculum. Our experiences with this professional development program has raised many questions about secondary teachers’ engagement and participation in working together in multidisciplinary teams to design integrated units of work. This roundtable will seek to explore the challenges in bringing such teams together, the challenges in implementing integrated approaches in secondary school contexts, and the opportunities afforded by integrating curriculum to enhance connections for students.

Reviewing of research papers

Research papers will be blind reviewed by a panel of peers approved by the conference committee. The main purpose of the refereeing process is to contribute to the growth and development of quality practice in mathematics education research. Thus reviewers are asked to assist authors by providing helpful feedback and to comment on the suitability of papers for presentation at the conference. Accordingly, it will not be assumed that published papers presented at the conference will be as polished as articles in scholarly journals. Referees will be asked to assess papers being reviewed against the accepted norms for scholarly works presented at MERGA conferences, as set out above.

Each conference proceedings’ Editorial Team will exercise discretion over the reviewing process.

Reviewers’ comments will be returned to the authors. Authors whose papers are not accepted for publication may be invited by the editorial panel to present their paper at the conference, with an abstract (only) being published in the proceedings. Papers may be rejected outright, with no opportunity for presentation at the conference in an alternative form.

The MERGA website has detailed advice about criteria for reviewing of MERGA papers, review forms, and examples of strong and poor reviews of different types.

Secondary teachers’ participation in STEM professional development: Challenges and opportunities

Secondary teachers’ participation in STEM professional development: Challenges and opportunities

Short Communications

Presentation of short communications

Beth Southwell Practical Implications Award

Recent Winners

Applying for entry into the BSPIA

Judging of the BSPIA

History of the Award

Research Papers

Research papers can take two major forms:

i. Empirical investigations

ii. Theoretical or position papers

Originality

Reviewing of research papers

Presentation of research papers

Research Symposia

Early Career Research Award

Recent Winners

Applying for the Award

Early Bird Review Process