Merrilyn Goos

STEM Futures: which way is “up”?

In this presentation I will review international trends in research on interdisciplinary STEM education, with particular emphasis on the role of mathematics education research in advancing STEM education goals. This review draws on a forthcoming special issue of ZDM – Mathematics Education on the topic of interdisciplinary STEM education (co-edited with Susana Carreira and Immaculate Namukasa) that will bring together accounts of contemporary STEM education research from 11 different countries in Europe, Asia, North and South America, Africa and Australia. My purpose is to identify challenges and opportunities for interdisciplinary STEM education, thus informing an agenda for future research in this field … in other words, to work out which way is “up”.

Danhui Zhang

Promoting self-regulated learning approaches in an online inquiry learning context

如何促进在线探究环境下的自我调节学习？

Web-based scientific inquiry learning environments possess advantages different to those offered by traditional classroom contexts. For instance, they can emphasise students’ autonomous inquiry learning rather than teachers’ lecturing, provide students with more technological support and flexibility to conduct explorations independently (Ren, 2004), facilitate students’ engagement and communication during the learning process (Kim & Lim, 2019), and improve students’ science competency (Chiu, 2010; Chiu & Linn, 2008; Clark & Sampson, 2008; Raes, Schellens, & De Wever, 2014). However, students will be faced with new challenges in such environments. Online inquiry learning demands students not only have domain-specific background content knowledge, but also possess the competency to self-regulate their learning efficiently (Azevedo & Witherspoon, 2009). A number of studies have focused on how to improve self-regulated online learning (Albelbisi & Yusop, 2019; Hadwin & Winne, 2001; Lin, Lai, & Chang, 2015). It has been discovered that providing supportive guidance, such as diverse scaffolding strategies (Lim & Kim, 2019; Lin et al., 2015) or supportive formative assessment (Al-Smadi & Guetl, 2011), was an effective way to minimize the difficulties and challenges in an online learning environment (Al-Smadi & Guetl, 2011; Kim & Lim, 2019).

Eddie Woo

Meaning & meaningfulness: expanding mathematics in the minds of our learners

In today’s world, virtually anyone you stop on the street can tell you what they think mathematics is. The responses may come with a fair dose of emotion and attitude – usually negative – but they will also be quite consistent, with the vast majority of people describing numbers, equations and formulas as the core of what they remember and experience of mathematics from school or daily life. While these concepts are central to mathematics, they are not comprehensive and the fact that so many students leave school with these features of mathematics dominant in their minds is a sign that we have an opportunity and a responsibility to expand learners’ conception of mathematics.

Geraint F Lewis

Cosmic horizons and before the Big Bang: Inspiring physics through universal mysteries

Cosmology, the study of the life and times of the entire universe, is one of the great successes of modern science. Reflecting several centuries of observation, experimentation and hard thinking about the universe, this success is to be celebrated. But this success masks several uncomfortable truths about our understanding of the universe, mysteries that reveal that cosmology is still very much a work in progress.