On February 13th, Akerke Andagul and Karlygash Ospan presented their current research at the Southwest Educational Research Association (SERA) conference. SERA is a regional educational research association dedicated to furthering the advancement of research in education. Both Akerke and Karlygash are enthusiastic math teachers of Harmony Public Schools (HPS) and active members of Rice University School Mathematics Project (RUSMP). Based on their experience as K-12 teachers and researchers, they have shared with the members of the conference their work on the challenges of implementing STEM Project-Based Learning (PBL) in Texas charter schools. Being the only K-12 teachers-presenters in the SERA conference, they received high praise for addressing critical aspects of STEM education.

Akerke and Karlygash have been passionate about STEM education from the first day they started their educational career at Harmony Public Schools. Collaborating with Yetkin Yildirim, director of STEM projects at RUSMP and Emel Cevik, a PhD candidate at Texas A&M focusing on STEM education, Akerke and Karlygash started their research on STEM PBL last year in February 2019. As Akerke says “Prior work has shown that STEM PBL is a critical part of K-12 education. Clearly, teachers play an instrumental role in implementing STEM PBL in the classrooms. However, prior work has not properly addressed the challenges and implications of implementing STEM PBL from teachers’ perspective”. Karlygash states that “Our research has shown that the current curriculum in Texas charter schools is not really STEM PBL supportive and there is an extreme deficiency of professional development activities that could otherwise foster a STEM PBL environment. As a potential solution, we have developed and proposed a sample curriculum for 6th grade that aligns with STEM PBL principles.”