Evaluating a programme for the CPD of STEM teachers working within inclusive secondary schools in the UK

This is a hybrid event; attendees can either join in person or on Zoom. If the latter, please click on the 'Register for this event' button in the top right corner of this webpage, and fill in the form.

If you would prefer to attend in person, the seminar will take place in Room G/8, in the Waterloo Bridge Wing of Franklin Wilkins Building, King's College London, Stamford Street, SE1 9NH. If you are not a member of CRESTEM, please email crestem-events@kcl.ac.uk to RSVP. 

Preparing teachers to enhance students’ STEM education usually takes place via continuing professional development (CPD) programmes. Many STEM CPD programmes are criticised for their short-term, information-dominated, and non-interdisciplinary approaches that lack critical consideration of learning communities, teaching contexts or that STEM teaching is likely to take place in inclusive secondary schools/classrooms.

Professor Kutnick will discuss the evaluation of a UK-based, national, eight-year+ STEM CPD programme using a bootstrapped approach combining qualitative insights and quantitative comparisons. We found high levels of teachers’ STEM competence, desire for student inclusion and perceptions of student impact. At the same time, shortcomings in the operations of teacher networks, lack of pedagogic/social pedagogic support and school-based disciplinary boundaries inhibited effects of the programme. Theoretical considerations were built into methods development and evaluation outcomes.

Speaker: Professor Peter Kutnick 

Peter Kutnick is Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Education in the School of Education, Communication & Society at King’s College London. He has held senior professorial positions at KCL, the University of Hong Kong and the University of Brighton.

His main area of interest is social and cognitive development of school-aged children within classrooms; developing the social psychology of schooling as a research area (with supporting theoretical concepts and methodological approaches). More recently, he has explored children’s aspirations to become an engineer and has led a large-scale evaluation of national STEM CPD programme. He has worked and undertaken funded research in the UK, the USA, the Caribbean, across Western Europe and in the Asian Pacific.

This event was part of the CRESTEM Seminar series.