Wednesday 23 November 2022.11:30am - 12:30pm
David Andersona, Marina Milner-Bolotina
Oksana Bartosh, Guopeng Fub, Lisa McIntosh
Development of online graduate programs in STEM education
Contact Organiser: Dr. David Anderson (
a Department Curriculum and Pedagogy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, V6T1Z4, Canada
b College of Teacher Education, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200050, China
BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
Before the Covid-19 pandemic, a team of UBC faculty members developed a 2-year, on-line, cohort-based, Master of Science Education program to provide professional development for practicing K-12 teachers. We realized that many educators in rural, remote areas a) have limited access to high-quality graduate professional development; b) cannot fit synchronous face-to-face professional development into their busy schedules; c) require support and mentorship; d) have few local science educators to collaborate with. The on-line curriculum delivery model approach addressed these challenges. Our initial 2018 intake was flooded with applications, as has been the case ever since. It speaks loudly to the demand and need for such graduate programs – particularly in the post-pandemic world. The demand subsequently prompted us to develop and launch two other on-line M.Ed. programs in STEM Education – Mathematics Education (2020); Media and Technology Studies (2021), and a fourth one to be launched in Environmental Education (2024). These programs will complete the set of STEM teacher education M.Ed. programs. This symposium will bring together the architects and foundational instructors of the programs to discuss a) programs’ design; b) lessons learned; c) the evolution of the inaugural model which led to the development of other on-line graduate STEM education programs. Further, we will discuss the evaluation research results that investigated the impact of online STEM education graduate programs on STEM teachers' pedagogy, understandings, and attitudes.
