‘Across the Divide’: Developing Professional Learning Eco-Systems in STEM Education

This paper reports the findings from ‘Across the Divide’, a cross-sector research project designed to question how university-school partnerships can influence university academics’ pedagogic practice in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). This project interprets the imperative of constant change in education reform as a relational, outward looking endeavour, resisting the pressure to focus inwards on the modernisation of bureaucratic systems (OECD, 2015). Findings from ‘Across the Divide’ are offered at time when, in parallel with countries across Europe, schools and academic institutions in England are being encouraged to review and reflect on the quality of teaching and professional development, in line with the Teaching Excellence Framework consultation (2016) and the Standards for Professional Development (Department for Education, 2016). ‘Across the Divide’ seeks to advance the notion of critical reflection on the quality of STEM teaching and learning, by moving to what the OECD (2015, p.15) terms a “’meso’ networked level” of professional development in STEM education.