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The Learning Curve Podcast, a feature of the School of Education at University of Aberdeen.
Welcome to The Learning Curve, the official podcast of the University of Aberdeen’s School of Education. Join us as we go beyond the syllabus to explore the bold ideas, high-impact research, and personal ambitions of our staff, students, and leaders.
Every episode features candid conversations with experts in areas ranging from Early Years Education and Outdoor Learning to Inclusive Practice and Leadership Development. Whether you’re a prospective student seeking career paths, a teacher looking for CPD, or an academic tracking the latest insights in STEM and Digital Pedagogy, The Learning Curve is essential listening.
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TLC S1E7 STEM education Mixdown 1
Shannon: Welcome back to The Learning Curve, friends. I'm your host, Dr Shannon Babbie. This is a University of Aberdeen podcast. Today we're shifting our focus to a field that is rapidly evolving and more critical than ever: STEM Education. From the classroom to the climate crisis, how we teach Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths is changing the way children see the world. Joining us today are Fraser Hepburn and John Duff, key figures here at the School of Education, who are leading the charge in innovative Stem teaching and research. It's great to have you with us, guys.
Fraser: Great. Thanks, Shannon. It's good to have a chance to have a chat.
John: Thanks for having me. Shannon
Shannon: Fraser. To get us started, could you tell our listeners a bit about your journey into STEM Education, and what your current role involves here at the University of Aberdeen?
Fraser: Well, it was really sciences at school myself; chemistry was one of my favourites and followed that up through various qualifications up through university and started out life as a QA analytical chemist in industry. However, that was literally watching paint dry. So it was not very exciting. I did a lot of work with young people at the time, so that kind of got me interested into that, that side of things. And that ultimately led to me applying for teaching. From there. My career in teaching has kind of been buried mostly a classroom teacher, in secondary school teaching science, but also involved a lot of transition work, with, with P6 and P7 both going down into schools, um, to work with them at that stage, but also coming up and working with them and S1 when they come in for their transition stages.
I've done a lot of work with pastoral roles and things as well. And part of the process of any teacher really is mentoring student teachers, and probationary teachers when they come in. And I was at a stage in my career where I was looking for something beyond classroom teaching and the role that the university came up and I jumped on it and got it. And that's what got me, got me here.
So my primary roles in university really are teacher education within both secondary and primary students. But I've got a lot of different apps around that as well. So I teach chemistry, physics and science education on the PGDE secondary program, but I also coordinate the recruitment for this as well. Also program director and course coordinator for our secondary education with biology, chemistry, physics and computer science. And I also coordinate science courses and inputs for both our MA and PGDE primary students, as well as working in the TQFE. o it's quite a lot of different hats. But regardless of which course I'm teaching on, I think my main aim really is to encourage our students to think critically and ask questions. Teaching isn't really about doing, it's about more than that. It's not just about doing a presenting, it's about developing an understanding of what you're doing and why what you're doing actually works or sometimes doesn't. I think that's key is getting them that thinking.
Shannon: And John, what about you?
John: So like Fraser, I enjoyed sciences at school, and then I completed a master's in computing before taking a circuitous route into teaching computing science. I had a spell as a professional golfer, and I found that part of the job that I enjoyed most was when I was kind of given a fun and engaging, getting to golf sessions for young people, and that led me into teaching.
Last year, I joined the University of Aberdeen to reintroduce the PGDE in Computing Science programme and to develop the new MA STEM Secondary Education Undergraduate Honours degree as well.
Shannon: Gentlemen, when we talk about STEM, people often jump straight to high tech robotics or complex physics. But at the School of Education you emphasize innovative teaching methods. What does that look like in practice for our student teachers?
Fraser: So what we're aiming for really is to make our student teachers think about what effective practice actually looks like for Stem education. That's really very much about creating learning contexts or hands on for pupils. So providing opportunities that encourage our student teachers to find ways to do this in their practice, whether that's in a secondary science lab with resources and kit, or looking for ways to take this outdoors and engage with the surroundings, or making use of household products and stuff you can pick up in the supermarkets that provide learning experiences in primary schools.
You don't need all the fancy kit aspects of STEM. It's about encouraging appropriate practical work, building projects or problem based learning opportunities that provide memorable contexts for learning and building engagement through those real world links and applications.
John: To echo what Fraser has shared, we aim to show that a fantastic computing science lesson does not need to rely on expensive technology. Unplugged online offline activities can be equally valuable in developing computational thinking, for example. And in fact, our primary education student teachers experienced this firsthand earlier this year, as they were tasked with writing algorithms for how to brush your teeth effectively.
Shannon: How has the rise of AI and virtual simulation changed the way we approach STEM education?
Fraser: So far, science, teaching, physics and engineering applications that are a growing number of really useful tools for simulating experiments and practical work that wouldn't be feasible in a classroom. These have come on hugely over the years, from the very early basic, blocky eight-bit graphics to what we have now with some of the software making use of more realistic 3D rendering. And they come with all sorts of variable control that allow you to play around with experimental factors and run tests in ways you could never do in a classroom.
John: A subject like computing science is constantly evolving, and this is reflected in the ongoing curriculum improvement cycle, not only within computing science, but also more broadly in schools and indeed their everyday lives. Young people are increasingly relying on AI to solve problems. And so I believe it's vitally important that these young people understand the world around them, because if they don't understand how, for example, AI overviews work and how they differ from traditional search engines, and how can we expect them to question and evaluate or even challenge the information that is then presented to them?
Shannon: How much of the STEM curriculum now focuses on, say, sustainability and environmental science.
Fraser: Arguably not enough. Well, there are themes of sustainability embedded throughout the various STEM curricula. The teachers are expected to encourage sustainable practices in pupils, as well as in their own approaches to teaching and learning. There isn't really a lot of focus on sustainability reflected in terms of the assessed outcomes within the current Stem qualifications. Hopefully, though, this is something we'll start to see more of through the improvement cycle that's ongoing in the development of future new assessments through Qualifications Scotland.
Shannon: How can science, technology, engineering and maths be integrated with the arts or humanities to create a more holistic learning experience?
Fraser: So this goes off and look at ways to build an interdisciplinary learning. Primary schools in particular, are very good at embedding aspects of STEM within the other curricular areas through project work. I think it's certainly something that secondary schools could strengthen. And while there are a number of ideas on the go, such as schools building a specific problem based learning and interdisciplinary approaches in classes, and within that BGE face. There's always room for exploring this further.
In the senior phase qualification, Scotland are starting to introduce the Scottish Diploma of Achievement, and the aim of this really is to provide a focus on project based collaborative assessment that will hopefully link learning and skills to real world problems. And this is certainly a great platform where we could look at encouraging more interdisciplinarity.
Shannon: For someone considering a career in Stem teaching, why is Aberdeen, with its unique history and state of the art MacRobert facilities the best place to start that journey?
Fraser: We have three dedicated resource teaching lab spaces, one for each of chemistry and biology and one for physics and technology. These allow students a space to explore both the theoretical and technical aspects of teaching STEM, but also the equipment and resources we need to let them experience a range of common, experimental and practical work across both primary and secondary curricula, encouraging our student teachers to get hands on and experiencing practical work from both a pupil and teacher perspective is really important for us, as it allows us, as teacher educators to model, best practice and highlight key challenges around doing science. We're building confident and effective STEM educators.
John: At the University of Aberdeen. Our team of teacher education tutors pride ourselves in ensuring that we support our students as individuals, and our low student teacher ratio means that we have the ability to really get to know students and ensure that they have the best experiences from our programmes. Our staff are committed to ensuring inclusion and collaboration, and we are recognised for excellence in disability and neurodiversity support.
Shannon: What are the unique challenges of introducing complex STEM concepts to the very young children in early years or primary settings?
Fraser: I think the biggest challenges here are the abstract nature of many of the concepts and ideas within the sciences. We can't see forces, the flow of electricity or pressure. You need to think of ways to approach them from what can be seen and observed. To help explain the ‘why.’ Children also struggle to grasp the scales involved, whether that's atoms that can't be seen, planets that are massive, or the unfathomable vastness of the universe and everything in between. Often this comes down to misconceptions. For example, picture books with all the planets and sun next to each other, sometimes scaled correctly to each other, sometimes not, and these are often spread across a page or the earth is next to the moon, when in reality, these are so far apart that the earth and moon wouldn't even fit in the same room, let alone on the same page.
And sometimes observing things that can be seen to be true but are actually scientifically false. And for example, putting on a jacket when it's cold warms you up. So the jacket providing warmth seems reasonable to a five year old, but goes against the laws of thermodynamics. Identifying the correct misconceptions is one of the key challenges to successfully teaching science in primary school.We work with our PGDE and MA students in the primary programmes to support them in developing approaches they can use to do this.
Shannon: In practice, there is a well-documented gender gap and diversity issue within STEM fields. How is the School of Education working to break down those stereotypes and ensure that future teachers are equipped to inspire all pupils, regardless of their background?
Fraser: We encourage our student teachers to make use of material that shows a diverse range of people in Stem. This can be things like thinking about what videos they use as part of teaching and learning, posters and walls and so on. Another examples of common research topic of famous scientists, where we encourage them to provide pupils with a broad range of current and historic figures beyond this table.
John: It is essential to introduce girls to STEM subjects early on to help dispel the stereotypes associated with STEM and to provide them with role models, and we aim to instill within every student teacher a desire to inspire all young people to be passionate about STEM.
Shannon: John and Fraser, you're involved in some fascinating research. Could you share a project that you're currently working on? Specifically, how does your research filter down into the way our students are taught to handle STEM subjects in the classroom?
Fraser: My current work and my doctorate is focused on recruitment and retention within secondary education, with a specific focus on STEM subjects. So it really ties in well with your previous question. One of the biggest challenges we have is encouraging people to see the value of teaching STEM based subjects when there can be flashier careers out there. We need to emphasize the importance of the skill set and knowledge that STEM education brings, and encourage people to continue to study these throughout their education, from primary to secondary and on to finish.
One of the ways we do this is by creating learning experiences that are enjoyable and memorable. So this goes back to encouraging innovative teaching approaches. We need our pupils to be enthused about STEM, to encourage that continued learning, and then look at ways to encourage them to consider teaching as a career where they can then enthuse the next generation.
There's a real danger that the opposite happens. Research shows that teachers who avoid or don't teach them well, either through lack of confidence or pedagogical content knowledge, produce pupils with negative perception of STEM subjects. This leads to less pupils continuing with these subjects in secondary and beyond, which in turn reduces the number of STEM graduates, further shrinking the potential pool of STEM teachers. It can also mean those school pupils that have had negative perceptions of science from poor teaching, who go on to become primary teachers or other subject teachers themselves may subconsciously propagate that feeling and continue the cycle.
What we aim to do with both our primary and secondary student teachers is encourage them to teach them, to give them the tools they need to make STEM learning fun and interesting, and provide them with the confidence that they can provide those positive learning experiences and break or avoid this cycle.
Shannon: John, can you describe the transition pathway that you're developing with local colleges?
John: The University of Aberdeen has created a new, flexible pathway to transition from college to year three of an honours education degree program. In order for students to embark on a rewarding career as a secondary teacher in either biology, chemistry, computing, science, or physics, the following. The two plus two model students will spend the first two years at college completing an HND relevant to their subject. So for computing science, that could be something like software development or chemistry, physics and biology that could be applied sciences. Then in year three, the first year that they have here at the university.
Students will split their time equally between sixty credits of education courses that will develop their understanding of STEM education in Scotland and beyond, and sixty credits of courses that will help them to develop a solid grounding in their specialist subject. Then, once they enter year four that runs jointly with the PGDE Secondary Education Programme here, and students will complete initial teacher education program, which is made up of eighteen weeks of school placement local to the students and eighteen week study on campus for two consecutive days. And we feel that school placements are a fantastic hands on learning experience that really allows students to implement the ideas that they've gained from the university studies, and to develop their skills and planning and delivering creative learning contexts for their pupils. Students work closely alongside experienced teaching staff, went out in schools to build their confidence and skill in using different teaching approaches in secondary school classrooms.
Shannon: What's a question you wish I had asked and what's the answer?
Fraser: So one question that maybe could have, we could have covered, I think maybe could have been, you know, what makes a good Stem educator? And for me, it's not about the subject knowledge. It's about the passion for the subject really wanting to teach it. And you don't need a high flying university degree to be a good science educator. If you've got the passion and the willingness to deliver exciting, engaging opportunities for children and encourage them to be interested in science and share that passion with them, I think that that's kind of the key thing.
And, you know, there are all sorts of different routes into science teaching. It's not the traditional route of having to do a degree and then the post-grad. Now, we have our new MA programme that's coming from September 2026, which will let you in through college and articulate in that way. So you're, you've got more options of getting in there. And I think it's really about wanting to be enthusiastic and wanting to really get that enthusiasm across other people.
John: I'm going to spin that and ask, rather than provide an answer, ask a question I wish that you had the answer to, which is, “How do we feel that we could make STEM education more attractive for people to get into? That would help us to address the shortage of STEM teachers in Scotland at the moment.”
Shannon: Fraser and John, thank you so much for joining us today. You heard it here first, friends. The University of Aberdeen is making strides in staying at the leading edge of technological and pedagogical innovation. Join us next time when we hear from Colette Savage, leader of our highly regarded Mindfulness Programme. Until next time, keep learning.