Research Projects
STEME
Science Technology Engineering Mathematics and Environmental Education Research Group
Re-imagining futures in STEME
Research Projects
Enriching mathematics and science learning: An interdisciplinary approach
This ARC funded international, longitudinal project aims to investigate the effectiveness of an innovative interdisciplinary learning approach in mathematics and science. Through collaborating primary schools in Australia and the United States of Ameri …
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Research Program
100 Jobs of the future
In this project Deakin researchers worked with researchers and industry experts in key ‘future of work’ clusters to identify what 100 Jobs of the Future might look like, showcasing roles in growing and developing industries to highlight the importance …
Research Program
Tech Schools Evaluation
Deakin University researchers are working with the Tech Schools Branch within the Department of Education and Training to conducted an evaluation of the tech Schools Initiative. To learn more about the Tech Schools, visit the DET website. The evaluatio …
Secondary Mathematics and Science Initiative – Research and Evaluation
In Victoria, the State Government Department of Education and Training (DET) has committed funds to the Secondary Science and Mathematics Initiative (SMSI). Deakin has been contracted to design and deliver graduate certificates in secondary mathematics …
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Research Program
An investigation of causal relations between complex classroom practices and science learning using high capacity new research technologies and multiple theory-testing
This ARC project applied multiple theoretical lenses to interpret the nature of student learning in secondary school science classrooms. These lenses included student agency, situated cognition, variation theory, structural functional linguistics, and …
Research Program
Professional learning at Wenona School: Girls in STEM
This project investigated the professional learning pathways of science and mathematics teachers, and student learning, around inquiry approaches supported by workshops and video capture. Wenona school is a strong STEM school, and the aim of the projec …
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Research Program
The Periodic Table of Sustainable Elements
Chemistry educators from Deakin and Macquarie Universities are developing hands-on activities for lower secondary and upper primary school children, that illustrate the importance of chemistry for sustainability, and that will celebrate both the Intern …
Research Program
NSW Marine Education Strategy
Contracted by the Department of Primary Industries, NSW, this projects requires consultation and writing the education strategy for the NSW Marine Estate. The education strategy completes an outcome of the recently released implementation plan – that …
Research Program
Climate Change Education Forum (with Sustainability Victoria)
Building from conversations about how Climate Change education requires specialised scaffolding and support in our education systems, this forum plan was designed to give voice to young people and to map what is happening, while also exploring what cou …
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Research Program
Sustainable Schools – Impact in Schools Communities
The research program explored sustainability education practices in Australian schools with a focus on the state-based Sustainable Schools programs and, in particular, the Resource Smart program of Victoria. The impact of these programs were investiga …
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Research Program
Evaluation of the STEM Enrichment Academy
The STEM Enrichment Academy, run out of the University of Sydney, is a significant professional learning initiative bringing together mathematics, science and technology teachers over a year, to support planning through a program of workshops and mento …
Research Program
Improving Regional Low SES Students’ Learning and Wellbeing (LP150100558)
The intended impacts of this program include: (a) quantitative improvement in the academic performance of participant students in the subjects of English, mathematics and science, (b) gains in student wellbeing in participant schools, (c) reduction in …
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Research Program
Multiliteracies for addressing disadvantage in senior school science (LP160100263)
This project develops and refines a pedagogy focused around multi literacy representation construction, to engage students in science learning in the senior school years. The approach combines Tytler’s representation construction research with a signif …
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Research Program
SLRC: Science of Learning Research Centre (SR120300015)
In this innovative centre, researchers in education, neuroscience and cognitive psychology worked together with teachers to understand the learning process. This collaboration was designed to establish new criteria to assess the impact of different typ …
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Research Program
EQUALPRIME: Exploring quality primary education in different cultures: A cross-national study of teaching and learning in primary science classrooms (DP110101500)
Difficulties in ensuring quality practice in primary school science education are widely acknowledged internationally. This project used contemporary video capture and data analysis technology to study primary science classrooms in Australia, Taiwan an …
Research Program
Enhancing the Quality of Science Learning through a Representation-intensive Pedagogy (DP120101763)
This project investigated the quality of science learning occurring through a representation construction approach to science teaching and learning, supported by students’ use of digital technologies, and new approaches to assessment and teacher profes …
Research Program
ASELL for Schools: Inquiry Science Activities
Advancing Science and Engineering through Laboratory Learning (ASELL) for Schools program is a collective of scientists, engineers, and educators across Australia that run workshops and creates resources to encourage learning through practical experime …
Research Program
Australian Association for Environmental Education (AAEE) – Curriculum Teaching Package Project
Stand Up for Your Climate/Future: Youth activism is education Important at this time with youth taking to the streets and climate change education requiring greater support. This curriculum package was commissioned by AAEE and delivered in web-format …
Research Program
Victorian Curriculum Assessment Authority – Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE) of Education Biology Study Design – Curriculum Writing, Advice for Teachers, and Benchmarking Report
The annual curriculum review involved researching a benchmarking report where the VCE Biology Study Design was cross referenced to eight international and national curricula. Amanda Peters and Mary Vamvakas worked on this project. Amanda and I were th …
Research Program
Systems Thinking in Chemistry for Sustainability: Toward 2030 and Beyond (STCS 2030+)
As the material basis of society and sustainability, chemistry has a compelling role to play as the world approaches 2030, the target date for attaining the UNSDGs. This project builds on the momentum and success of the recent systems thinking in chemi …
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Research Program
Primary teachers’ adaptive expertise in interdisciplinary maths and science
This project aims to investigate the development of primary teachers’ adaptive expertise in interdisciplinary mathematics and science. As a critical component of quality teaching, adaptive expertise is essential for teachers to innovate their teaching …
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Research Program
Future STEM Gen – Enabling a Better Future: STEM Making Within Low SES Regions
This project, now titled Future STEM Gen, will empower youth from low socioeconomic status regions to gain leadership and STEM skills and address local and global challenges. Students will be provided with STEM maker kits for projects that genuinely co …
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Research Program
Primary Science Renewal through a Specialist Program
Primary Science Renewal through a Specialist Program DET, $40k
Defining and mapping out-of-field (OOF) teaching in Victorian government schools
Defining and mapping out-of-field (OOF) teaching in Victorian government schools DET, $50k
AAS – Evaluation of 3 AAS interactive programs for ITE and PST
AAS – Evaluation of 3 AAS interactive programs for ITE and PST 2020 $20K
Training PMSS presenters to deliver online professional development
Training PMSS presenters to deliver online professional development DET, $8.7k
Literature reviewing and problem identification for Birth to Year 10 learning and teaching of science
Literature reviewing and problem identification for Birth to Year 10 learning and teaching of science DET, $45.6k
Girls’ Future – Our Future: Updating and elaborating
Girls’ Future – Our Future: Updating and elaborating. $68,000
Exploring the Reciprocal Relationship Between Mathematics Anxiety and Mathematical Resilience: A Cross-Cultural Study
International Collaboration Research Support (Small Faculty Grant Application, Deakin University (Australia) and Kazan Federal University (Russia Federation) (Approved, Grant number: 1914). “Exploring the Reciprocal Relationship Between Mathematics Anx …
Victorian Department of Education and Training: Primary Mathematics and Science Specialist Program: Planning committee and provision of training
Victorian Department of Education and Training: Primary Mathematics and Science Specialist Program: Planning committee and provision of training. Cohort 5 $60,000
Skilling the Bay
Department of Education: STEM and Entrepreneurship in primary schools (SEPS) AUD 60,000.
Shifting the culture of out-of-field professional education for teachers (SCOPE-T)
ARC Discovery Project (2024-2026) There is an urgent need to understand the factors influencing the pattern of uptake of professional education by out-of-field teachers. This project will draw on perspectives from schools, governments and professional …
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Research Program
Exploring STEM curricula in Australia and Taiwan
This project interrogates the perspectives of teachers in Taiwan and Australia concerning interdisciplinary STEM Team members: Dr. Suchi Fang Dr. Lihua Xu Funding body: Department of Science and Technology, Taiwan
Research Program
Sustainability conditions of a major primary science specialist teacher initiative
This project researched the experiences of primary teachers and their schools, who were involved in the DET funded Primary Mathematics and Science Specialist program, for which Deakin was a major developer. Team members: • Coral Campbell (CI), • Gail C …
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Research Program
Enhancing primary school teachers’ professional noticing through artefact-stimulated recall
Team members: Wanty Widjaja project leader, Wendy Jobling Lihua Xu, Jun Li (Colleen Vale mentor) Funding body: CREFI funding Project published in 2019 book : Widjaja, W., Xu, L., & Jobling, W. (2019). Examining primary school teachers’ professional …
Research Program
FLEX Project: Flexible Pedagogical Problem solving in Implementing Mathematical Problem solving
Despite attempts to change mathematics teacher practice in to more engaging pedagogy, many teachers possess an inertia to such change. This study explores a new angle to overcoming that inertia by interrogating the question: Is teachers’ optimism (resi …
Research Program
Mathematical resilience: two theoretical perspectives informing each other (Growth Mindset, Engaged to Learn Pedagogy)
The purpose of this study is to build a theoretical framework for examining the building of resilience in contexts where students have the autonomy to problem solve mathematically (Williams) and in situations in more traditional situations in which the …
Research Program
Methodological innovation to support the identifying of student knowledge construction processes: the usefulness of ‘student gaze’
This video study of a student pair learning in a Year 10 mathematics classroom in Helsinki includes video of the teacher, the student pair, and the gaze of one of the student pair. The purpose was to identify an interval in which their appeared to be p …
Research Program
Promoting interdisciplinary secondary mathematics and science teaching through real-world tasks: A cross-national study in Australia and Indonesia
Building STEM capacity across the population and increasing teacher capacity and STEM teaching quality are critical. This project will embed real-world tasks and multiple theoretical frameworks to enhance secondary students’ scientific and mathematical …
Research Program
Assessing Reasoning
This research aims to investigate teachers’ formative and summative assessment of their students’ mathematical reasoning in the primary classroom. We have explored different sources of evidence, including students’ self-assessment, assessment protocols …
Research Program
Champions for mathematical reasoning
Mathematical reasoning involves developing and communicating arguments with the intention to convince. We will use a design-research approach to develop resources for the professional learning of a designated reasoning champion and research its usefuln …
Research Program
Conceptualising a Framework of Pre-Service Teacher Integrated STEM Learning
This mixed-method research study is investigating how pre-service teachers negotiate the intersection and overlap of the individual STEM disciplines within their integrated STEM teaching. Classroom observations, teacher collaborative discussions and in …
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Research Program
Maximising Affordances of Virtual and Augmented Reality in Science Learning
This project is establishing a body of evidence on the educational affordances of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) for learning science in primary and secondary school settings. Through evidence gathered in VR/AR hands-on workshops for s …
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Research Program
Cross-country comparative studies of chemistry education teacher practices
An ongoing collaboration has been established with international chemistry education researchers to develop notable comparative chemistry educational research of direct impact to teaching and learning in schools. The initial iteration of this program h …
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Re-positioning chemistry as the ‘sustainability science’ through systems thinking
Cross-disciplinary researchers have called for a radical re-positioning of chemistry, and a prominent international project has coined the term “one-world chemistry” to describe a systems thinking approach to teaching and learning chemistry, emphasisin …
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Research Program
Collaborative Reflective Experience and Practice in Education (CREPE) Faculty Research Group
Funding: $15818 Faculty of Arts & Education – Faculty Group Research Summary: Although teaching and learning are at their heart social, at a tertiary level can be an isolating. As educators, we are constantly adapting our practices to meet new cha …
Understanding Innovation and Change processes in a collaborative European Project
The PARISSE project (http://www.parrise.eu/ ) was a European Union initiative aiming to develop approaches to science teacher education based on a ‘SSIBL’ framework of socio-scientific inquiry based learning that foregrounds socially responsible resear …
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Research Program
ReMSTEP – Reconceptualising Mathematics and Science Teacher Education
ReMSTEP is a network of four leading universities dedicated to developing new teacher education approaches that align contemporary practices in the sciences with innovative and engaging approaches to teaching and learning. The four partner institutions …
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Research Program
The role of optimism in collaborative problem solving in mathematics: building problem solving capacity
Lack of persistence creates substantial barriers to mathematical problem solving. Successful problem solving that can raise mathematical performance is predicated on a suite of affective characteristics involving optimism (e.g., academic resilience, co …
Research Program
TeachLivE project
The TeachLivE project used mixed-reality simulation technology to enhance classroom readiness of pre-service teachers: TeachLivE as the virtual classroom (2017). This was an ongoing research studies with colleagues at University of Western Australia. R …
Growing Tall Poppies Program: An authentic science experience for Year 10 students (2015-2017)
The Growing Tall Poppies (GTP) program involves a student-scientist partnerships strategy where, mostly, Year 10/11 female students attend a science organisation for 3 to 5 days wherein they work with scientists to undertake an authentic research proje …
Research Program
Evaluation of the Scientists and Mathematicians in Schools project
This project evaluated the model and outcomes of the CSIRO managed SMiS program using a variety of evaluative tools including an economic analysis. Team members: Dr. Gaye Williams Professor Russell Tytler Dr. Peta White Professor David Symington Publi …
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Research Program
The development of mathematical concepts and skills though PASMAP and its potential to foster intellectual dispositions in children and teachers in the early years of school (2018-2021)
This longitudinal mixed methods project will examine the impact of the implementation of the Pattern And Structure Mathematics Awareness Program [PASMAP] (Mulligan & Mitchelmore, 2016) in Foundation to Year 2 classrooms in Catholic Education primar …
Research Program
Birth to Level 10 Numeracy Guide
The aim of the Birth to Level 10 Numeracy Guide project is to inspire and build the capacity of a diverse audience for improvement and growth in numeracy understanding and practice. The Numeracy Guidesupports understanding of numeracy across the curric …
Research Program
Understudy and Overdose
In this project, final-year preservice teachers tutor first-year nurses in the mathematics needed for science, furthering the mathematical knowledge of both groups. The project gives primary preservice teachers the opportunity to work outside the usual …
Research Program
Girls As Leaders in STEM (GALS)
Deakin University, in partnership with schools, Upstart, STEM industries, and The Gordon/Skilling the Bay, will provide a project-based learning program for Year 5-8 girls from the Greater City of Geelong region to work closely with women in STEM and S …
Research Program
STEM and Entrepreneurship in Primary Schools (SEPS)
STEM and Entrepreneurship in Primary Schools (SEPS) is a professional learning program specifically designed to build teachers’ confidence and capacities for STEM teaching through inquiry-based approaches. Team members: Dr. Lihua Xu, Associate Professo …
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Research Program
Girls’ future: Our future: Invergowrie STEM Report
This project involved an investigation into issues and approaches concerning girls in STEM. It included a comprehensive literature review, building on previous research of the STEME group, and a series of interviews with key players. The project is cur …
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Research Program
The Successful Students – STEM Project, “Skilling The Bay”
Professional development program for Year 7 and 8 STEM teachers from 10 schools in the Geelong region. A ‘STEM Vision framework’ provided an overarching structure for the teacher change process. The PD involved four cycles of PD delivery, teacher desig …
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Research Program
Secondary STEM Catalyst professional learning program
The program, delivered by the Science and Mathematics teams at Deakin, began in 2016 with an induction program for two teachers, called catalysts, and their Principal, from each of the disadvantaged schools. The catalysts then began a 4-Unit Graduate C …
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Research Program
Out-of-field teaching: Sustaining quality teaching (Teaching Across Subject Boundaries [TASB] Project)
Teaching out-of-field (teaching a subject without qualifications) is a rising concern internationally, and is linked to attrition, stress, and reduced student learning outcomes. With a comparatively high percentage of out-of-field teachers, Australia i …
Research Program
School-based pedagogies and partnerships in primary science teacher education
This project provided an analysis of school-based approaches to primary science teacher education as it is enacted by five Australian universities. The project responded to international concern about primary teachers’ lack of science knowledge and con …
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Research Program
Teaching out-of-field: Preparing adaptable teachers (TOPAT) 2013
Alarming numbers of early career teachers are expected to teach subjects they are not qualified to teach, that is, teach out-of-field. This project examines the curriculum of secondary teacher education programs in relation to a demand for adaptable ea …
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Research Program
Developing digital pedagogies in inquiry science through a cloud based teaching and learning environment
This project extends innovative, cloud-based teacher planning software in order to develop effective strategies for using digital resources in inquiry science. This project will work with a number of schools to investigate the development of an inquiry …