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Abstract
This article presents findings from the document analysis of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) lesson plans written and enacted in Southeast Asian classrooms aimed at providing integrative learning experiences for students. The authors argue that the culture of STEM education is embodied in teacher-designed STEM lesson plans or cultural apparatuses. The authors applied Sewell’s theory of culture to unpack the cultural embodiments (physical and abstract elements) embedded in six STEM lesson plans comprising lesson schedules, worksheets, and handouts. The findings showed that certain categories of culture were more evident in specific components of a STEM lesson package. The article contributes to the relatively nascent literature that, to date, has not closely examined teacher-designed integrated STEM curricula using a cultural lens. The study also has implications for STEM teachers to consider making cultural embodiments and practices more visible during their lesson planning and framing of STEM curriculum.
Abstract
Despite the increasing attention for STEM, a gap of knowledge still exists concerning: a) the views of teachers coming from S-T-E-M backgrounds on integrated STEM education, b) the ways teachers conceptualise STEM, and c) collaboration trends between S-T-E-M experts. In attempting to address this gap, the authors aimed to respond to these questions in the context of a STEM professional development programme in Europe, where 26 in-service teachers were divided into four learning communities and engaged in developing STEM teaching materials. Data were collected through individual interviews which were analysed through qualitative content analysis. Teachers’ views were explored using Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model, whereas teachers’ justifications on integration models were analysed for the purpose of examining their conceptualisations on integration. Collaboration trends were derived from teachers’ collaboration preferences. Teachers considered that there are systemic factors impeding the implementation of STEM, while teachers emphasised the engineering design cycle, content integration and real-world relevance in their integration models. Collaboration trends highlighted technological expertise as well as having prior STEM experience. Drawn from these findings, the authors offer a set of recommendations about the development of cross-disciplinary collaboration groups in order to help overcome disciplinary barriers.
Abstract
To better understand integrated STEM education, this work explored scores on the STEM Observation Protocol (STEM-OP), a newly developed observation protocol for use in K-12 science and engineering classrooms. The goals of this work were to better understand how integrated STEM might look throughout an integrated STEM unit and identify limitations of the instrument when examining daily scores and full unit implementation scores. The work takes a mixed methods approach to first examine what scores may be typically seen with daily and unit implementations. After identifying an exemplar integrated curriculum unit with consistently high daily scores, the authors qualitatively explore the fluctuations in protocol scores over the course of a curriculum unit implementation. Our work reveals that some items on the protocol may vary throughout implementation, while also demonstrating that achieving the highest scores on all items during one lesson or even throughout a full curriculum unit is challenging.
Abstract
This qualitative study examines how guided curation develops practicing teachers’ task perception as a dimension of integrated STEM teacher identity. Task perception is defined as teachers’ beliefs about their roles and responsibilities as integrated STEM educators. Analysis of teachers’ (n = 22) guided curation assignments from a graduate STEM education course revealed how teachers perceived their roles and responsibilities as integrated STEM educators and potential challenges to integrating STEM. These beliefs included the importance of centering the engineering design process, encouraging collaborative problem solving, providing productive mistake-making opportunities, and connecting mathematics and engineering. Teacher educators’ adaptation of a freely available STEM lesson specification tool scaffolded the collection and analysis of curriculum resources. This adaptation was instrumental in developing task perception. Implications for building elementary teachers’ capacity to implement and sustain innovative integrated STEM instruction are offered.
Abstract
This article delves into the significance of bodily experiences in the context of outdoor STEAM activities. It features a case study involving three tenth-grade students who engage in outdoor tasks – which are part of an outdoor STEAM trail – using the MathCityMap app. The research focuses on the students’ emerging strategies when dealing with two modelling tasks by integrating the modelling cycle phases with a perspective on embodiment that encompasses learning as navigating mathematical places. By intertwining these theoretical stances, the analysis uncovers the students’ strategies and seeks to describe their orientations during the experience. Despite the students not reaching the expected solutions, they bodily engage with the modelling tasks in meaningful ways, employing an array of various strategies. Trying to overcome the separation between domains, classically emphasised in the modelling context, the authors show how bodily engagement operates at their intersection and discuss the relevance of their approach for STEAM activities.
Abstract
This article presents design-based research to explore the potential of integrating STEAM education and the Sustainable Development Goals into a project-based learning experience to address the lack of access to water in Argentine Patagonia. The study, which was conducted at a rural school in the region of Patagonia, with 13-year-old students, focused on designing, constructing, and installing a solar-powered irrigation system. The article discusses benefits of combining project-based learning, mathematical modelling, and outdoor STEAM education to provide students with an engaging and comprehensive learning experience in STEM subjects. The authors highlight the need to restructure the school organisation to integrate interdisciplinary approaches to address real-life problems. It also emphasises the importance of contextual restrictions and how they can be used as didactic variables to motivate the use of rationality in problem-solving. Experience reports provide insights into STEAM-based education’s potential to foster students’ critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, and collaboration skills.
Abstract
Modelling activities serve to integrate real-life objects into STEM classes. This article investigates different settings for modelling with real objects and their representations both inside and outside the classroom. Using the example of mathematics, the settings working outside the classroom at the real object, inside the classroom with photos, and inside the classroom with a 3D model are considered and compared in an explorative study with 29 students. Questionnaire items provide information about the students’ perceptions of the different settings. The results report significant differences in the simplifying and structuring step as well as in the mathematising step when comparing the settings outside and inside with photos. The results are taken up for generating hypotheses concerning the role of the outdoors in interdisciplinary STEM modelling activities.
Abstract
In this special issue, the topic of Outdoor Education related to an integrated STEM approach is taken into consideration. Three articles focus on theoretical background and practical investigations of education outside the classroom. The issue aims at contributing to further research on the topic and providing an overview of activities that strengthen the link between the STEM disciplines and the students’ environment.