A case study exploring primary teachers’ experiences of a STEM education school-university partnership

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the experiences and professional learning of a group of in-service primary school teachers, participating in a STEM education programme in Ireland. Four primary teachers from the same case school engaged in a two-year project to explore STEM teaching and learning. This STEM project was structured as a multi-tiered partnership involving these four in-service teachers collaborating with six STEM teacher educators and a group of pre-service primary teachers, working together to develop an effective school-university STEM collaboration. The project focused on developing and facilitating meaningful classroom-based STEM learning experiences for primary aged children in the school. This paper specifically explores the professional learning and experiences of the in-service teacher participants. The teachers engaged in co-creating and co-facilitating a series of STEM lessons over two years in partnership with, and supported by the university STEM Education faculty. The paper provides insight into the participating teachers’ professional learning in STEM education, as well as implications for school–university partnerships.

KEYWORDS:

• STEM education
• school-university partnership
• teacher professional learning

Acknowledgments

Thanks to the teacher participants for their time and engagement with this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Miriam Hamilton

Dr Miriam Hamilton is a lecturer in education in Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, Ireland and a member of the Department of STEM Education.Miriam teaches science education to undergraduate and postgraduate pre-service teachers. Her research studies and publications span a variety of educational domains including; the social context of education, initial teacher education, professional development in education and learners’ educational experiences.

Anne O’ Dwyer

Anne O' Dwyer is a lecturer in Science Education in the STEM Education at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick. Her research interests include teachers’ and learners’ experiences of Science and STEM education.

Aisling Leavy

Aisling Leavy is a mathematics educator with interests in statistics education and STEM education. She is the Head of Department of STEM Education at Mary Immaculate College.

Mairéad Hourigan

Mairéad Hourigan is a mathematics teacher educator in the Department of STEM Education at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick. Her research interests include mathematics education,teacher education, and STEM education.

Claire Carroll

Claire Carroll is a lecturer in mathematics education in the Department of STEM Education at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick. Her research interests include STEM education, mathematics education and coding in the primary classroom.

Edward Corry

Edward Corry is a lecturer in the Faculty of Education, Mary Immaculate College, Limerick. His research interests include ICT in education and STEM education.