Skill Standards: Navigating the Narrative Traps
To help practitioners, instructional designers, and quality assurance teams navigate changes in vocational education and training (VET) assessment; a practical briefing and workflow tool.
Scientist and teacher of science
"It looks like you are a teacher of science rather than a science teacher." - Professor David Penny, FRSNZ, Massey University
Michael Fenton (MRSNZ) is a New Zealand scientist, future-focused educator, and qualification designer based in Taranaki. His research began with a Masters in microbiology at Massey University and has continued for more than three decades, driven by the founding question of the Nexus Research Group: how do you do authentic science with nothing? That question has produced original low-cost scientific instruments, a novel serial-communication discovery in Casio graphing calculators that enables timed data logging for a few dollars, and an emerging theoretical framework, Design by Subversion. He is a professional member of the Royal Society of New Zealand and a Ministry of Education E-Learning Fellow, and his research is permanently archived on Zenodo with citable DOIs. Across that work he has created and protected the spaces where authentic STEM learning can happen, physical, pedagogical, and at the level of curriculum and qualifications. A through-line of his current work is that, as AI models train on an increasingly polluted scientific literature, first-hand measurement is becoming essential rather than optional.
Recognition across three careers
Few people are recognised across scientific research, secondary classroom teaching, and tertiary teaching and lecturing. Michael has received awards in all three.
- Kiwibank New Zealander of the Year, Local Hero Medal, for services to science education
- New Zealand Prime Minister's Education Excellence Award finalist, Excellence in Leading
- DEANZ Excellence Award for Excellence in E-Learning, Distance Education Association of New Zealand
- Ministry of Education E-Learning Fellow
- Microsoft New Zealand Innovative Teacher Award
- New Zealand Microbiology Society Postgraduate Prize
Featured recent work
Casio calculator serial protocol discovery
A novel RECEIVE() timing discovery lets standard Casio graphing calculators log sensor data at timed intervals, a hundred-fold reduction in the cost of classroom data logging, with a priority disclosure archived on Zenodo.
The B9 robot mobile laboratory
A walking, talking, AI-enabled mobile science laboratory that broadcasts live sensor data to learners' devices and speaks any language.
The RIGEL, RIGEL-WEB and SMART instrument family
A family of universal science instruments, from a Windows sensor interface to self-contained browser-based tools, invented by repurposing game and web architecture for authentic STEM learning.
Explore RIGEL, the browser ports RIGEL-WEB and SMART, and the full archive on the Research page.
Design by Subversion: a working framework
A constraint-driven framework identified from a 35-year body of practice, describing how educators turn hard constraints into the design brief across technical, pedagogical, and institutional work.
AZTEC: a browser game built with AI as a partner
A free browser remake of the 1982 Datamost game AZTEC, built as a worked example of using AI as a creative partner in education: the human keeps the concept, direction, and judgement while AI fills the skill gaps. Archived on Zenodo with a citable DOI.
Explore
- Research Outputs and Publications, the 35-year record with Zenodo DOIs
- Teaching, Instructional Design and Moderation
- Projects and STEM Inventions
- Workshops, Talks and Science Communication
- The Nexus Research Group
- Curriculum Vitae
The Nexus Research Group
In 1997 Michael founded the Nexus Research Group, believed to be New Zealand's only secondary school-based research laboratory and unique in the Southern Hemisphere, with Dr Sir William Pickering, former director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, as patron. Its motto, Question Everything, and its founding question are the origin of everything that followed. Read the Nexus story.
Teaching across the full STEM spectrum
Michael is one of a very small number of teachers in New Zealand able to teach every science and mathematics subject, plus coding, robotics and electronics, at both secondary and sub-degree level. With a sustained shortage of qualified science and mathematics teachers across New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom, that breadth lets one person fill several specialist roles. See teaching, design and moderation.
Consultancy
Through Focus Consultancy, Michael provides qualification and course design, assessment design and moderation, STEM teacher professional development, programme review, and online courseware design to education providers throughout New Zealand.
Connect: LinkedIn . Focus Consultancy . YouTube