We seek to address the global challenge of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) shortage, strengthen STEM capabilities and improve communication and resilience in STEM classrooms, starting in the context of two districts in South Africa.

The intended legacy of the project will be a new approach supported by resources that can be rolled out across South Africa, sub-Saharan Africa and many other countries in the World that have concerns about access to and progress with STEM subjects.

This project is based on a synergy of the work of Sue Johnston-Wilder (CES, Warwick) and Audrey Msimanga (Wits School of Education). The intervention is based in academic safeguarding and preventing exclusion from STEM (Findon & Johnston-Wilder, 2017); Johnston-Wilder has developed the Growth Zone Model and related strategies to address anxiety and other affective barriers to learning STEM subjects and Msimanga has developed a resonant framework for addressing communication barriers to learning STEM subjects.

The project blog can be found here.

Supported by the Warwick ESRC Impact Acceleration Account.