Event Report: SMEC 2024 “Beyond Boundaries – Future-proofing Science, Maths, Technology and Engineering Education”

 

SMEC 2024 saw the coming together of the STEM education research community in Ireland to discuss the latest developments in STEM education, to share the results of research, to develop collaborative relationships and to spark ideas for future research

Over the course of two days, 120 attendees, made up of researchers, policy makers, teachers and students, enjoyed keynote presentations, symposia, research presentations, lightning talks and poster presentations under the theme “Beyond Boundaries – Future-proofing Science, Maths, Technology and Engineering Education”

SMEC 2024 was officially opened by CASTeL Chair, Dr. Clíona Murphy, who highlighted the importance of SMEC and similar events in driving research in STEM education in Ireland. Clíona was followed by Prof. Matthew Inglis whose keynote presentation “How should science and education research be communicated to teachers”, highlighted the challenge of communicating research results to teachers and the importance of the research community developing their capacity in this area to bridge the gap between research and practice.

Over the course of the first day, attendees engaged with a wide array of research presentations under a number of areas including education reform at primary and post-primary, pedagogies for learning STEM from early-childhood to post-primary education and STEM teacher professional development.  Dr. Clíona Murphy completed the programme for Day 1, with her keynote presentation “STEMming the Tide: Nurturing Scientific Literacy for Active Global Citizen”.

             

Day 2 of SMEC commenced with an address by the Executive Dean of the Institute of Education at DCU, Dr. Anne Looney. Participants engaged with a number of symposia and research presentations, covering a wide variety of themes including the use of inquiry-based learning to engage children with STEM and ways to support teachers to teach integrated STEM. Over the course of the two days, participants also got the opportunity to engage with several research posters. SMEC 2024 was closed by the Conference Chair, Dr Stephen     Gammell who gave an overview of the two days of the conference.

               

A huge thank you to the this year’s organising committee  Dr.  Stephen Gammell (Chair), Dr. Aisling Twohill, Dr. Natalie O Neill, & Dr. Yvonne Naughton.  Proceedings for SMEC 2024 will be published in December 2024.