Call for submissions and proceedings

Our program is now live!

At the conference, interaction and exchange between participants will be encouraged by means of active presentation formats and a variety of meetings.

A “Conference White Paper” will be distributed prior to the conference to promote discussion around STEM in Education and propose some “STEM Provocations”. Responses to the white paper and the keynotes will be encouraged through a live Twitter feed: #STEMedDU16. There will be separate hashtags for each of the STEM provocations. This Twitter feed will be live prior to, during and after the conference. Responses to the “STEM Provocations” will culminate at the end of Thursday October 6 in a Plenary and round-table discussion entitled “The future of STEM in education – Key issues and next steps”.

Conference Proceedings

All presenting authors will have the option of submitting a paper for the proceedings. The conference proceedings will include the keynote presentations, results from the plenary and round-table, and papers from the invited presentations, oral paper presentations, posters and workshops. Those wishing to have their paper included in the proceedings should submit their paper via the Conference Submissions Portal (opens in new tab/window) by February 17, 2016 (open now).

Papers abstracts will be reviewed by 2 reviewers.

The following format is available for submitted papers. Paper templates will need to be used for submission

• Keynote presentations: 12 page paper
• Invited presentations: 6-8 page paper
• General presentations: 1-6 page paper
• Workshops: 2-3 page case study or description

The proceedings will also include the White Paper distributed prior to the conference, and summary of findings from the STEM provocations and Plenary and roundtable.

Please use the Online portal to submit your paper

Due date: February 15, 2017.

The proceedings will be published on the conference website as a PDF, with the intended publication date March 15, 2017.

For assistance with constructing the paper, please contact:

• Linda Hobbs linda.hobbs@deakin.edu.au
• John Cripps Clark john.crippsclark@deakin.edu.au
• Barry Plant barry.plant@deakin.edu.au
• Marika Thomson marika.thomson@deakin.edu.au

Key date

15 December	Closing date for full papers for refereeing

Submission expectations

You are invited to submit proposals for papers, posters and workshops.
Participants can submit multiple proposals. All submissions should be aligned with at least one of the conference themes (see below), and should indicate which ‘Learning Area/s’ are relevant.

Submissions can include reference to subject-specific (eg. Science, or mathematics) and/or interdisciplinary approaches (eg. Integrated approaches) to education. The emphasis is on STEM education in schools.

All submissions will be peer-reviewed. If accepted, your proposal will be programmed to maximise delegate interest. At least one of the presenters will need to be registered for the conference.

A published, peer-reviewed proceedings will be prepared. All presenters are invited to submit a paper for review.

In addition, powerpoint presentations will be collected and placed into a conference Googledrive folder as PDF documents, accessible by the conference delegates. If you have elements in your presentations that are copyright or data that you do not wish to be made public in this way, please provide the Deakin IT support people with an amended powerpoint file. Your registration will include a consent form that asks for your permission to publish your powerpoint in this way.

Conference themes

• Conceptualising STEM, and STEM policy
• Teaching approaches/strategies/activities relating to STEM subjects
• Curriculum development
• Learning and assessment
• Research that relates to STEM in schools
• Teacher Education
• Industry links and partnerships

Learning areas

• Mathematics
• Science
• Design and Technology
• Digital Technology

Preparing your proposal

Proposals for papers, posters and workshops are welcome. All proposals should be in the form of a 400 word abstract and should be submitted on the Conference Submissions Portal (opens in new tab/window).

Paper presentations

Oral paper presentations will be allocated 20 minutes, which comprises 15 minutes for the paper presentation and 5 minutes for questions and discussion.

The purpose of the presentations is to report on research, theoretical ideas, or school initiatives that have some evaluation of their impact.

Here is an example of a PowerPoint for a paper presentation.

Poster presentations

Poster presentations can relate to research or theory. The posters will be on display on a dedicated break out room. There will be space in the program for posters to be ‘presented’ and will in involve a brief 3-5 minute introduction to the research or theoretical ideas being presented. The posters will be also available throughout the conference.

Presenters should prepare a poster (A0= 841mm x 1189mm, or A1= 594mm x 841mm) that details their research or initiative (questions, methodology, results, analysis/evaluation), and a short introduction to the key ideas. Poster format can be portrait or landscape.

Posters are best created as a single slide in a program such as PowerPoint and then printed to A0 or A1 size. Here is an example of a poster generated in PowerPoint and turned into a PDF. Dimensions are as follows: A0= 841 x 1189 mm; A1 = 594 x 841 mm

Workshops

Workshops are intended to be hands on and interactive and should show the application of research outcomes, teaching initiatives, or teaching resources or tools, collaborative teaching strategies, or good practice.

Presenters should prepare a session that will run for 55 minutes, and that will enable participants to interact with each other, be involved in activities, and go away with something that is can be applied to STEM education. For example, the workshop might include creative interactive approaches such as brainstorming, role paly, voting on statement, simulations, experiments or constructions, mystery guest.

Submitting your proposal

Submissions are accepted until July 29, 2016. All submissions will require a 400 word abstract.

Submissions will require the following information:

• Author information (Name, affiliation, email address of each author)
• Type of presentation (poster, paper, workshop)
• Theme (nominate up to 2)
• Learning Area (nominate any appropriate)
• Title of presentation
• Key words (3-5 words/phrases)
• Abstract for research paper and poster presentations: including research/theoretical context, significance, research aim or question, methodology/argument, findings/results/conclusions
• Abstract for workshops: including theoretical positioning (eg. Link to STEM education), aims, audience, structure and requirements

Proposals submitted in hard copy will not be accepted. Only proposals submitted via the Conference Submissions Portal (opens in new tab/window) will be accepted and reviewed.

Presentations of authors who fail to pay and register to attend by 29 August 2016 may be withdrawn from the program at the discretion of the committee.

Equipment

Presentation rooms will have a lectern, PC laptop with PowerPoint installed and data projector. We suggest you bring your PowerPoint presentation on a USB drive. For other hardware and software needs please bring your own laptop.