'Tús maith, leath na hoibre'. The Irish saying that ‘a good start is half the work’ is an apt motto for building students’ interest in science, technology, engineering and maths.

That’s because what and how children learn about maths and science in primary school shapes not only their competence but also their interest (or lack of interest) in STEM subjects as they move through secondary school and beyond. 

Professor Hamsa Venkat, Naughton Family Chair in STEM Education at DCU

This early experience is a key focus for Professor Hamsa Venkat, an expert in mathematics education who has taken up the newly created Naughton Family Chair in STEM Education at Dublin City University.

“We know that if children in primary school get turned off maths, it is really difficult to persuade them to stay doing maths. They struggle through it, and they drop it as soon as they can,” said Prof Venkat. “And the same is true for science.”

The new role will see Prof Venkat working with colleagues in the DCU Centre for the Advancement of STEM Teaching and Learning (CASTeL), DCU Institute of Education, DCU Faculty of Science & Health and DCU Faculty of Engineering & Computing. 

The aim? To build up the competence and confidence of primary and early-years teachers and their students across STEM subjects. 

 

I (no longer) hate maths

Prof Venkat had a positive experience of maths at school in London, and she followed her early ambition to become a mathematics teacher, working for several years before moving into research. Most recently she held a chair at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, where much of her research looked at ways to encourage both competence and confidence in maths among students and teachers. 

One of the initiatives, called ‘I Hate Maths’, recognises that teachers may fear maths and to help them develop their skills and enthusiasm without fear of reproach. 

“We would have these very large events where we would focus on games and puzzles and people working together on a problem in an environment that very openly acknowledged that ‘I hate maths’ is a commonly expressed emotion,” said Prof Venkat.

“The intention was to get teachers working together in a fun [and] safe environment…to re-engage and say the work we do can be a huge amount of fun if we can get on top of the mathematics we want to teach and be confident and enthusiastic about it.” 

Teamwork at DCU

One of the factors that attracted Prof Venkat to DCU is the strength of collaboration across disciplines on the early years of education. 

“Early learning is not just about these little boxes of disciplines that we teach in school,” she said. 

“[It] is about good maternal health, it is about good birth to 24 months and we know how critical it is to have parents supporting children during that period. So being able to work in teams who can come together and think about the interventions that we want to put into place, about the policies or curricula, I am really excited about working with a team that brings those expertises together, because I think that we can solve bigger problems that way.”

Culturing STEM

One of Prof Venkat’s aims in her role as Naughton Family Chair in STEM Education is to promote a ‘virtuous cycle’ of embedding STEM in wider culture through early education.

“There is a critique that what schooling teaches us is a lot of what we might call inert knowledge, knowledge that is not very usable because the minute we have done those exams and crammed for them if we need, we will have forgotten it because it is not seen as something that is usable in the world,” she said.

Instead, she wants to integrate and empower STEM education in schools in a way that enables children to bring together STEM and other disciplines and skills to solve problems. This will pay dividends not only for building a workforce where people are talented in STEM disciplines, but it will also engender a wider society that values STEM and sees it as an integral part of communities and culture. 

“I think if we can intervene early and intervene with young children, the payoff for that is if children can come home singing about ‘I did this in school in maths’, or ‘I did this in school in science’ or ‘I did this design project in school’, what we start to do is build a feedback loop into the home and into the community, and that enthusiasm is a catalyst for changing the perception that STEM subjects are hard and to be avoided.”