Science & Technology Education Promoting Wellbeing for Individuals, Societies & Environments

STEPWISE is a framework – with pedagogical resources – that teachers may use to develop lessons and activities that may help students to develop expertise, confidence & motivation for eventually independently developing & implementing research-informed & socially-negotiated socio-political actions to help overcome risks &/or harms of their concern in STEM-SE relationships.

STEPWISE Pedagogy

STEPWISE Pedagogy

Students’ Research-informed & Negotiated Action (‘RiNA‘) Projects

STEPWISE Rationale
Pedagogical Resources
Teachers Talk About STEPWISE
Students Talk About RiNA Projects
Email Me

Teaching & Learning Resources

The resources below – many of which you can download from here – were largely developed by me during my teaching & consulting careers and through action research with practising teachers in several different contexts since 1988 during my scholarly career.

Online Sample Lessons & Student Activities
Sample STEPWISE-informed Lessons & Student Activities (PDF)
Science Education for Civic Action
Science and Technology Education Promoting Wellbeing for Individuals, Societies and Environments
JASTE School-based Issues

Each of the four school-based issues of JASTE linked have been edited by school science teachers and feature many students’ reports of their RiNA projects.

  1. Volume 5, Issue 1 (2014)
  2. Volume 9, Issue 1 (2018)
  3. Volume 11, Issue 1 (2020)
  4. Volume 13, Issue 1 (2024)
Skills Apprenticeship Resources (PDF)
Graphic Novel About Civic Actions Against Industrial Pollution (PDF)
Sample Student RiNA Projects
Multi-Actant Documentaries
STEPWISE on YouTube
STEPWISE Theory & Resources Links

Teachers Talking About Their Implementation of STEPWISE

STEPWISE in Elementary Schools

Since its inception in 2006, STEPWISE has been mainly explored and developed in secondary school science contexts, including with students in after-school clubs. We have worked with a few teachers in elementary schools, however – as described in the video at right/below. Based on such work, we believe that students in elementary schools are quite capable of developing critical views about science & technology and societies more generally and developing and taking personal & social actions to overcome harms of their concern. However, there are few STEPWISE-informed teaching & learning materials available for teachers’ uses. If you are interested in collaborating with us in action research to develop and field-test STEPWISE approaches in elementary schools, you might review the videos below and then write to larry.bencze@utoronto.ca.

Introduction for Elementary School Teachers

Students Reflect

Teacher Teaches

Students Practise

Students Talking About Their RiNA Projects