2022 CASTeL 9th STEM Education Research Conference

24-25 June 2022

“Regenerating STEM Education – Growing back better”

The Centre for the Advancement of STEM Teaching and Learning (CASTeL) invites researchers, teachers, policymakers, students, industry representatives, and interested others to Dublin City University on 24-25 June 2022. Here we aim to help debate, discuss and share visions for how we can “Regenerate STEM education” such that we can “grow back better” in the service of improving environments and outcomes for learners and teachers. Join us to see how you can grow, develop and interrogate your practice in the community of your peers.

Where does STEM education currently stand? As we return to the physical teaching spaces of campuses and schools, it is a time to reflect on what is best about STEM education. Whilst the impetus to build back better is clear we also ask: how will we grow back better? We hope to acknowledge not just the toll on teachers and learners but also highlight the rise of the affective in educational research. Affective concepts include emotions, feelings, motivations and moods and aims to build on and enrich cognitive models of behaviour and learning (Dukes et al 2021). Affective variables may be critical in models of student belonging and their related persistence in STEM courses (Estrada et al 2020). Outdoor learning, playful learning and indeed any pedagogical strategy that engages the imagination of learners may be at least partly understood with relation to affective models and theories.

Many of the guiding questions or our research in the future may centre around what we have learned over the last two years and which elements of online STEM teaching and learning might be here to stay. What serves our learners best in any mode? How do learners think and reason while building their knowledge in complex technical subjects? How do learners feel about the subjects they are learning and the environments they are in? How can we help our students to grow? We engage in these inquiries in the context of the recently issued call for consultation on Ireland’s STEM education policy development, which is a reminder of the STEM education ecosystem we operate in and how we must continually dialogue with its varied stakeholders (DES 2021).

We invite you you to submit a proposal and come and be of the conversation around STEM education regeneration.

Important Dates

Feb 14th
Call for abstracts opens
March 21st
Abstract submission system closes
April 4th
Registration system opens
May 31st
Full papers due
June 24th – 25th
Conference in Dublin City University