The resources

The University of Auckland is responding to a New Zealand-wide specialist teacher shortage by harnessing technology in an innovative new way to compensate for STEM teaching shortages. These highly interactive resources will help teachers, particularly those who are not subject specialists, teach STEM subjects. They do not replace teachers, but are designed to support teachers and engage students with content that is fun, relevant, contextual and exciting.

STEM Online NZ currently covers Physics achievement standards: 90940, 91171, 91173 and 91524, Chemistry standards 90932, 91944 and 91164, as well as Mathematics standards 91028 , 91027 and 91262.  Additional standards through to level 3 will become available as they are developed.

Intended to be used as part of a blended learning environment, alongside more traditional coursework, each module is divided into sections which covers the content of one NCEA external standard. It’s flexible as to how the content is used, it can be used as a learning tool, for revision, or a teacher can pick and choose parts of the course to use.

The presenters

STEM Online NZ has a uniquely NZ look, tone and style. It’s designed to really engage secondary students with context that is real and familiar to them and it’s fun, with humour injected into the stories and images.

Another unique feature of this resource is that university students take the secondary school students on their learning journey through each module. The university students become a mentor, they are the first people the students meet when beginning the course, they are the presenters in the video content and they appear as avatars throughout the course content to offer encouragement and advice.
Cara and Bodene are the students presenting the Physics content, Daniel and Nisyola present Mathematics, and Star and Jordan present Chemistry.