STEM

Video games are a favourite pastime of both children and adults alike, and schools are therefore using them to engage students in their lessons. This month on Teacher, we published a reader submission that explored how digital gaming motivates Indigenous learners in primary school. In today’s episode, we share highlights from this piece and more.

A new research study is currently being undertaken to investigate the factors that help or stop young female students participating in digital technologies at school. In this article, the research team share their findings so far, and resources for teachers and students.

The 2022 winners of the Prime Minister’s Prizes for Excellence in Science Teaching have just been announced. In this article, we share the contributions the primary and secondary school teachers are making to Science education.

Year 5 and 6 students from MidCoast Christian College in regional New South Wales were tasked with designing their own video games. We speak with educator Melissa Tindall about the process of designing the games from scratch, and how it allowed students to explore the 21st Century skills of critical thinking, creativity, collaboration and communication.

We know that, overall, female participation in STEM is lower than that of males, and that schools can play an important part in encouraging girls to pursue education and careers in this area. In this podcast, we’re joined by Jessica Huynh, Managing Director of Go Girl, Go for IT, a free one-day technology conference for girls, and teachers from a school that participated this year.

‘One class was a notable illustration of everything we know about quality in play-based learning.’ In this article, ACER Senior Research Fellow Rachel Parker shares the details of a playful STEM class she witnessed in the United States, where students were engaged in a crime scene investigation activity.

Since 2014, ACER’s STEM Video Game Challenge has invited students to design and build their own video game. In this article, we share the winning games of the 2022 challenge, and former challenge winners share the impact their experience has had on their post-school journey.

In this episode in our Action Research series, we hear from Sarah Durack, a secondary Science and Mathematics teacher based in Sydney. Sarah shares her experience of combining researching part-time with a full-time teaching job, and shares some of the findings from her study on school to university transition.

In this episode in our School Improvement series, we hear from Dr Jason Zagami from Griffith University, who shares some of the current challenges and opportunities of computer education in Australian schools, and how teachers can better prepare for future technological advances.

‘When you’re in a bush kinder, there are no gendered materials. Everything that’s there is for anybody to play with.’ Recent findings from a Deakin University study reveal that bush kinders can build children’s early confidence and skill development in STEM, especially for young girls.