STEM subjects – science, technology, engineering, maths – are undeniably important if we are to meet the needs of our increasingly globalised world. So knowing what encourages uptake of these subjects to the highest level is of the utmost importance. Good teaching might be an obvious answer, however we don’t fully understand what constitutes ‘teaching excellence’ in STEM subjects. Dr Alfred Thumser, at the University of Surrey, UK, decided to ask bioscience students what they thought. The results were illuminating.
One of the more significant developments in senior secondary and tertiary education over the last thirty years has been the increased importance of teaching STEM subjects – science, technology, engineering, and mathematics – to meet the growing impacts of technological developments in an increasingly globalised world. However, for various reasons, the pace of change in the education of these subjects has been such that pedagogic