Dr Sarika Kewalramani

Biography

Sarika Kewalramani is a Senior Lecturer in STEM Education at Swinburne University of Technology and the Course Director of Bachelor of Education Primary course. She has been a primary/secondary science, chemistry and mathematics teacher for 10+ years in Australia. Her versatile experiences in PreK-12 contexts, affiliation with primary and secondary public and independent schools/preschools in Victoria, including being a secondary school’s Head of Science Domain (2010-2014) guides her research to enhance STEM education opportunities for disadvantaged communities. Her PhD research contributed to the understanding of Australian immigrant families cultural beliefs and values, and experiences in shaping students’ STEM career choices.

STEM is being prioritised as an education reform agenda. In line with this, Sarika leads a strategic program of research exploring inclusive STEM and Robotics teaching and learning strategies codesigned by teachers, parents, and communities for children’s STEM engagement. Sarika is the founder of the evidence-based program ‘Improving Child Social and Emotional Development with Robotics Play’ funded by Vic DET, School readiness funding early years unit - https://www.education.vic.gov.au/childhood/providers/funding/Pages/program.aspx?queryid=190    accessible for Victorian early childhood professionals, parents and allied health professionals for building children’s literacy and numeracy skills through STEM-based play. The program’s website (ongoing development of age-appropriate resources) https://www.inclusive-robotics.com/   provides educators and families (currently involving 8 kindergarten services, one primary school in the Northern Territory and 12 families from low SES Victorian communities) with the tools and resources to engage children in STEM and robotics play. 

Within her repertoire of funded research, Sarika works very closely with community stakeholders such as STEM Incubators, STEM Sisters and policymakers (such as OECD, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia MOE, Vietnam MOET) to implement research-based curricula programs for STEM education.


She has also been involved in projects funded by Digital Learning & Teaching Victoria looking at improving participation in STEM, one of which she worked with primary Catholic schools in disadvantaged areas of Melbourne to codesign and evaluate a STEM and technologies integrated unit of work. Through 5+ years of research, a key outcome has been the development of an all-inclusive STEM and Technology integration pedagogical framework (see publications list below) currently being employed for teachers’ professional development within international contexts.   

To translate research into impactful outcomes in Robotics and STEM teaching and learning, Sarika regularly gets invited by education and industry stakeholders (e.g., Australian Journal of Early Childhood Symposium, Early Childhood Australia Resource Hub, STEM Sisters, Monash Robogals, Inspiring Girls Australia) to deliver panel webinars, media interviews and keynote/conference presentations  Sarika’s recent research investigates how teachers and parents can support children with additional diverse needs (e.g. EAL, language delays, ADHD) with social-emotional development using inclusive STEM and robotics-play practices. 
    

Sarika is the Co-convenor of European Early Childhood Education Research Association (EECERA) SIG 'Digital Childhoods, STEM and Multimodality' where she established and leads the STEM workstream. She has built a strong international presence through her international collaborations by being an active member of EECERA, European Science Education Research Association (ESERA), Australian Science Education Research Association (ASERA).

In 2023, Sarika was awarded the Australian Teacher Education Association (ATEA) - Early Career Researcher Award for the project investigating the integration of Indigenous Science content and pedagogical knowledge into teacher education science curricula programs. Most recently, Sarika was nominated for ATEA's Victoria State Leader where she mentors early career teacher educator academics and builds a community of practice in improving teacher education research initiatives. 

Sarika has also received prestigious and competitive awards such as 2023 Vice Chancellors Future Focused Research award for her project - Robotics Play for STEM teaching-learning in ECE, as well as 2023 Deans Nomination Award for excellence in Teaching, Research and Service in Teacher Education.