meriSTEM is an ANU STEM education initiative providing comprehensive, curriculum-aligned, modular resources for senior secondary teachers, enabling them to ‘flip’ their classrooms in order to maximise deep, engaged learning. The purpose of meriSTEM is to increase student achievement, independent inquiry and critical thinking skills in STEM core subjects, while also increasing teacher capacity to facilitate this learning.
Since 2016, meriSTEM has provided a senior physics course to schools across Australia. In 2019 we are continuing to improve this course, while developing equivalent offerings in chemistry, biology, Earth and environmental sciences, and maths. meriSTEM uses Open edX and other free online software to provide the student self-paced component of the resources and we are using multiple methods to improve the accessibility to all Australian students, regardless of physical location and digital resources. In the presentation, we will briefly explain how the request from local teachers set the wheels in motion to establish the meriSTEM program, what we have learned thus far through working with secondary teachers and students and where we are heading next. We will summarise responses from teachers and students using meriSTEM in 2019, and our research questions for a formal evaluation of the project in the coming years.
