News/

STEM textbook wins national award

22 September 2021

CQUniversity's Senior Lecturer Australia Pacific LNG STEM Central Lead Dr Linda Pfeiffer had an impressive win at the prestigious 2021 Educational Publishing Awards Australia (EPAA).

The EPAA celebrate excellence and innovation in the industry' including its people and the learning resources they develop.

Announced as the national winner of the Teaching and Learning Resource – Blending Learning category' the textbook 'STEM Education in the Primary School: A Teacher's Toolkit' was co-authored by Dr Linda Pfeiffer' Anne Forbes' Vinesh Chandra and Rachel Sheffield.

Dr Pfeiffer said it was an honour to not only win their category but to win overall best tertiary resource in Australia.

"We worked very hard at producing a resource that was informative and engaging and provided teachers with an in-depth introduction to STEM. I am very proud." she said.

'STEM Education in the Primary School: A Teacher's Toolkit' published by Cambridge University Press aims to help Australian Primary Schools understand what STEM (Science' Technology' Engineering and Mathematics) training is and more importantly' how to deliver it to students. It introduces teachers to the theory' skills and practice of teaching STEM through a project-based learning approach to engage all learners.

As Education Academics and past teachers' Dr Pfeiffer et al. produced this well-developed and thoughtfully designed textbook as they felt there were no resources for STEM available in the primary classroom for both pre-service and in-service teachers.

"There is no resource currently available for embedding STEM into the classroom mapped to the Australian Curriculum'" Dr Pfeiffer explained.

"In order to effectively embed STEM into the classroom you need to provide teachers with the support' as well as develop partnerships with STEM experts in their fields.

"This textbook connects current research in STEM education to teaching practices through detailed discussion of topics' including assessment' learning spaces' community and STEM futures."

Having co-authored a research collection previously' this book' however' was Dr Pfeiffer's first co-authored book where she contributed to all chapters.

Dr Pfeiffer said it was a privilege to work with other experts in this field from Universities across Australia and that she already has ideas for more books and useful resources.