Promoting student agency through PBL in STEM

Teachers working with academics from Monash and Queensland universities on a new Australian project researching Problem Based Learning (PBL) in school-based STEM education. In a 3-part series, Associate Professor Kathy Smith, Dr Jennifer Mansfield and some of the teachers involved have been sharing details of the 3-year project and reflecting on what they’ve learned so far. This final article discusses student agency.

The project Exploring Problem Based Learning in Schools has identified 4 principles which inform PBL in STEM education: a) flexible knowledge, skills, and capabilities; (b) active and strategic metacognitive reasoning; (c) collaboration based on intrinsic motivation; and (d) problems embedded in real and rich contexts.

Here, 2 participating teachers working as co-researchers in the project discuss how the experience of researching PBL in their STEM teaching has enabled them to consider student agency as a necessary condition for meaningful STEM learning. Melissa Gatt and Frank Fabri share their learning about how this pedagogical intention can be supported and further developed by the principles of practice which frame a PBL approach to STEM education.