#theSTEMproblem project is funded by an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage grant, and involves researchers from Monash University and the University of Queensland partnering with staff and teachers from Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS) and Brisbane Catholic Education (BCE) schools to explore the connection and possibilities of Problem Based Learning (PBL) in STEM education.

With the project now fully underway, we have been running a series of Professional Learning (PL) workshops for participating teachers in the project, and have started to run other events for teachers and members of the public who are interested in finding out more about the ways and advantages of utilising a PBL approach for STEM education.

One of these recent events was a 100 minute session on Integrated STEM Education run by our Lead Investigator, Dr. Kathy Smith at the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership on Tuesday 31st May 2022. This session was run as part of the Victorian Academy of Teaching and Leadership’s Teaching Excellence Program (TEP), which is a year-long PL program for highly skilled primary and secondary school teachers from all three major school sectors in Victoria (Catholic, Government, and Independent).

A total of 32 Science teachers in the TEP participated in this session, which explored teacher thinking about integrated STEM education, with Dr. Smith sharing some of the findings to date from the project regarding the principles of PBL, and exploring how this information can shape planning considerations and teaching.

The session was well received, with teachers enthusiastically participating in all activities, as well as generously sharing their ideas, challenges and experiences in collegiate discussions. Overall, feedback during and after the session was positive, with attendees inspired to implement a PBL approach in their school contexts, as well as have the team from #theSTEMproblem speak to their schools in the future.

We are keen to continue sharing our work in #theSTEMproblem with the wider community, and will be hosting our first public STEMinar as part of National Science Week celebrations in 2022. This public STEMinar is set for Wednesday 17th August, 2022, and will see a panel of team members from #theSTEMproblem discuss our work in the project to date, as well as challenge us to identify some critical questions that will enable us to think about how we can put these principles into practice.

This panel includes researchers from Monash and the University of Queensland and some of our MACS and BCE teacher co-researchers to further highlight the importance of our participating teachers in theSTEMproblem.

To register for our upcoming public STEMinar, please click here.