STEM Education
Experiences
What is STEM? What is STEM Education and Why STEM Education? How can you plan, assess, and teach an integrated STEM approach? Before taking the Australian award Short Course, Graduate Certificate in STEM Education at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) beginning of 2020, and as an educationist working with the Papua New Guinea National Department of Education, participating mainly in curriculum development, training and curriculum implementation through media and digital technologies, these questions and many more really got me thinking when I first heard from Hon. James Marape – Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea (PNG) announced on media beginning of 2020 that STEM education will be implemented in PNG.
Being one of the awardees of the Australian Short Course on Certificate in STEM Education, am more privileged to say that through this short course, I have learnt a lot - more than expected and even experienced new introduced technologies. The short course really contributed a lot to my personal and professional growth and even for me personally, it was timely with the current curriculum reform the PNG education system is undergoing.
STANDARDS - BASED CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT
Currently, the education department through the curriculum division is in the process of developing a new reformed curriculum called the Standards- Based Curriculum (SBC) to replace Outcomes- Based Curriculum (OBC). With the right timing, and from the experiences and vast content knowledge and skills gained through this short course on STEM education, I managed to contribute in some ways to the curriculum development process by embedding STEM concepts, principles and process in the SBC curriculum documents (syllabuses and teacher guides) mainly for upper primary and secondary sector. The lower primary and elementary SBC documents were developed prior to the introduction of STEM education. However, elementary and lower primary teachers have been advised to apply integrated approach.
All syllabuses for junior and senior high school explained the importance of integrated STEM under the section called: STEAM Rationale, Aims & Goals and Guiding Principles.
The importance of the 21st century skills are also captured under the section called: Essential Knowledge, Skills, Values & Attitudes.
Source: Technology & Industrial Arts Syllabus for Grade 9 & 10 (2020)
The Core Curriculum Design was one of the designs used in the development of the PNG Curriculum. The core curriculum design has been utilized to provide all students a common set of learnings (essential knowledge, skills, values and attitudes) in order to effectively prepare them to live, study and work in the 21st century
In addition, the core learning design was used to determine and integrate a core set of common learnings (knowledge, skills, values, and attitudes) that should be provided for all students within and across all subject fields and subjects to ensure that they acquire and master these before they are career, higher education, and citizenship ready.
The Core curriculum was embedded in all learning standards - content standards and grade-level benchmarks by all subjects.
Core curriculum comprises the following:
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Cognitive skills (critical and creative thinking);
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Reasoning, problem-solving and decision-making skills;
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High level thinking skills (analysis, evaluation and synthesis);
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21st century skills;
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STEAM principles and skills;
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Spiritual values and virtues;
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Reading, writing and communication skills, and
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Essential knowledge, values and attitudes.
For more information regarding PNG SBC Curriculum, click below.
BEGINING OF STEAM EDUCATION IN PNG
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Many of the curriculum or learning standards – content standards, benchmarks, evidence outcomes, performance standards also capture the STEM concepts and practices. Some examples are shown in the table below.
Apart from embedding STEAM concepts in the curriculum standards for almost all of the STEAM disciplines, STEAM pedagogies & practices such as inquiry- based learning, project-based learning, etc.., STEM problem solving processes and skills such as Engineering design process, creative and critical thinking processes and skills and many more are elaborated in the teacher guides for implementers – teachers to apply in planning, teaching, learning and assessment.
Source: Grade 6 Science Teacher Guide (2020)
STEM & SBC TRAINING
Of the many contributions to the curriculum development process specifically in the inclusion of STEM concepts through integrated processes in the syllabuses and teacher guides for upper primary and secondary, I was also heavily involved in training. Many education officers from different sectors have benefited from some of my STEM training conducted in 2020 and 2021.
The table below shows some of my STEM training conducted so far.
However, captured in this website is one of the STEM Education training conducted for 400 plus elementary, primary and high school teachers. The website also indicates link to other STEM trainings I have conducted for different groups of people.
400 plus provincial TOT Trainers from the 22 provinces
HIDEAWAY HOTEL:
20-24th July, 2020
Junior & Senior High School SBC TOT Training.
National Trainer of Trainers (TOT) – TOTs from the 22 provinces were flown to Port Moresby to be trained on STEM education and SBC. The TOTs include provincial education advisors, guidance officers and provincial trainers.
15 participants mainly curriculum developers or officers from the curriculum division including teachers and lecturers
This was a training and writing workshop. This training and writing workshop was done in two weeks.
This was one of my biggest challenge to guide a team of writers from different fields of education in developing a STEAM Resource Booklet for Grades 9,10,11 and 12 to supplement or support the implementation of Standards-Based Curriculum.
MALAPAU RESORT :
7-11th December, 2020
Junior & Senior High School ENB SBC TOT Training
300 plus high school and secondary teachers
All the high school and secondary teachers in the East New Britain Province. Even some elementary and primary teachers who were interested in STEM education came for the training
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INTRODUCTION
I was invited by the chairman of the Head Teachers of a cluster group known as Taskul inspectorate which consists of a high school known as New Handover high school, 27 Primary schools and 63 Elementary schools in Kavieng District in New Ireland Province.
The high school and the 27 Primary and 63 Elementary schools are all located on a group of islands known as Lavongai Island (also known as New Hanover) in the New Ireland Province of Papua New Guinea.
PURPOSE
The invitation was to conduct a one-week training on STEM education for 400 plus high school, elementary and primary teachers during their school in-service training week from the 27th of June – 4th of July, 2021 . Due to remoteness and negligence by the provincial education authority, for a decade now, there has been no in-services as such were conducted especially in that cluster to help the teachers in their teaching career and be informed about latest developments in education.
ABOUT NEW HANDOVER
This cluster came up with this combine In-service program involving all New Hanover High School teachers plus all Primary and Elementary School teachers in the Taskul electorate. The only form of transport to the schools is by boat which takes approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes from Kavieng town.
Boat trip to New Handover