STEME

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Keynote Speakers

Professor Julian Williams
Professor of Mathematics Education
University of Manchester

Situating STEM within a Funds of Knowledge perspective on problem solving (pdf, 2.2mb)

Although I have been critical of the Funds of Knowledge project perspective because of its misunderstanding of capital, it might offer a  context which marries both (i) the bridging of academe with home, community, and work contexts, and (ii) problem-solving from the learners own life-world. I will draw on examples, such as that of 5-year old Rico’s photograph of his aquarium, and his identification of the home-mathematics of ‘the shape of a fish’ for inspiration.
Then there was Bobby George, our famous darts player, who eventually was forced to work out the odds to avoid excruciating embarrassment at the oche. What would a STEM curriculum look like if it took seriously Rico’s home knowledge or Bobby’s professional identity? Finally, how might we conceptualise the ‘disciplines’ in STEM in a way that would help such a curriculum?

Richard Lehrer
Frank Mayborn Professor, Department of Teaching and Learning
Vanderbilt University

Perspectives on Integrating Elementary STEM Education (pdf, 3.3mb)

Richard Lehrer is Frank W. Mayborn Professor of Education at Vanderbilt University. A former science teacher, he is a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association, a member of the National Academy of Education, and the 2009 recipient of the American Psychological Association’s award for Distinguished Contributions in Applications of Psychology to Education. Working in concert with teachers, he focuses on the design of classroom learning environments that support the growth and development of learning about foundational concepts and epistemic practices in science and in mathematics. In mathematics education, he investigates development of children’s (K-6) reasoning about space, measure, data, and chance when instruction is guided by teacher knowledge of student reasoning.