STEM Activity Through Design Based Learning in PM 2.5 Crisis for High school

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professional development for K–5 teachers often includes engineering design as a focus. Because engineering applications provide perspective to both teachers and their students in terms of how mathematic and scientific principles are employed to solve real-world problems (Baine, 2004; Roden, 1997), there is great interest in using engineering as a context for studying STEM education. Engineering as a context for learning mathematics and science is documented in the National Research Council’s review of K–12 engineering curricula (National Research Council, 2010). Further, engineering has become integrated into the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013), which provide a mandate for the formal integration of engineering into the K–5 curriculum. Although it may suggest fluidity in curriculum and instruction among the four disciplines, “the STEM acronym is more often used as shorthand for science and mathematics education” ( Katehi, Pearson, & Feder , 2009, p. 12). The increased attention to engineering in elementary curriculum (e.g., the Next Generation Science Standards ), teacher preparation, and professional development provided the motivation for our research. Our project provided teachers with professional development opportunities designed to enhance their knowledge and preparation for teaching using engineering design. Following the professional development course, we observed how the teachers implemented engineering design lessons with students in their classrooms. In recognition of the limited preparation of elementary level teachers to teach engineering content and pedagogy, we created and implemented a professional development opportunity for grade K–5 teachers to enhance their knowledge of engineering and the design process. Specifically, our collaboration sought to enhance the participating teachers’ understanding of the work of engineers. We also explored the procedures for engineering design as approaches to solving problems and conducting research while recognizing the developmentally appropriate application and use of these approaches for teaching STEM to elementary level learners. Our STEM education intervention consisted of a three-day summer institute that combined presentations, workshops, hands-on activities, and curriculum planning and development. Our research was based on the anticipated influence of engineering-focused professional development on teacher practice and the subsequent increase in student engagement in engineering design-based learning activities (Fox-Turnbull, 2006). Specifically, we examined the elements of the design process that teachers emphasized in their instruction and the student- generated artifacts inspired by the lessons, and we classified the design assignments by the extent of responsibility taken by the teacher and student in terms of the structure of the elements in the design process. We gathered empirical data detailing teacher knowledge of the design process, their instructional use of engineering design, and student response to design assignments at the elementary, K–5 level. Our report presents a new level of design classification rubric developed for categorizing levels of responsibility of the students and teachers in the design process. The rubric was designed to classify design lessons based on the student and teacher (or instructional resource) responsibility for decision making in determining the structure of the elements of design.

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is integrated into education programs in many countries because it benefits the national economy and raises qualified manpower. During STEM-based activities, students increase their problem-solving and research skills by using technology and engineering knowledge together with science and mathematics knowledge. When the studies in the literature are examined, although it is seen that STEM education has positive contributions, it is encountered that the current resources for teachers are limited. The lack of up-to-date resources for teachers causes them to be insufficient in their field knowledge. Apart from this, teachers need to follow current technologies to be able to correctly apply the technology and engineering steps in STEM education and to have a high level of technological literacy. This study will provide information about the integration of educational robots in the researches to be done in the field of STEM education and give an idea to the studies to be done on the subject.

Developing teacher knowledge, skills, and confidence in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education is critical to supporting a culture of innovation and productivity across the population. Such capacity building is also necessary for the development of STEM literacies involving the ability to identify, apply, and integrate concepts from STEM domains toward understanding complex problems, and innovating to solve them. However, a lack of visible models of STEM integration has been highlighted by teachers as a challenge to successfully implementing integrated STEM education in schools. Problem Based Learning (PBL) has been well-established in higher education contexts as an approach to learning in the STEM disciplines and may present an effective way to integrate knowledge and skills across STEM disciplines in school-based STEM education and support the development of students as capable, self-directed learners. However, if PBL is to effectively contribute to STEM education in schools and build teacher capacity to teach STEM, then this approach needs to be better understood. This paper aims to generate a set of principles for supporting a PBL model of STEM education in schools based on insights from the literature and expert focus groups of PBL professionals. Four principles of PBL emerged from the data analysis: (a) flexible knowledge, skills, and capabilities; (b) active and strategic metacognitive reasoning; (c) collaboration based on intrinsic motivation; and (d) problems embedded in real and rich contexts. The study outcomes provide evidence-informed support for teachers who may be considering the value of adopting a PBL approach in school-based STEM education.

The use of immersive and interactive learning environments is gaining traction in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education, as educators seek to engage students and enhance learning outcomes. We explore the potential of Metaverse for designing immersive and interactive escape rooms that leverage microlearning to teach STEM concepts and skills. We overview Metaverse and its potential as a learning environment, before delving into the use of escape rooms as a strategy for fostering critical thinking, collaboration, and problem-solving in STEM education. We examine the benefits of incorporating microlearning strategies into escape rooms, including the use of bite-sized content and personalized learning paths. Through a case study of a Metaverse escape rooms implemented in Studio Gometa as a smartphone app and aimed at mathematics education, we highlight the learning outcomes achieved and the challenges faced in the design and implementation process.

This chapter explores use of Design-based learning (DBL) and digital tools to facilitate collaborative learning through design-based projects. Design-based learning (DBL) is an educational approach that incorporates hands-own, authentic, multidisciplinary design tasks to identify problems and design solutions. With DBL, students typically work in teams and are tasked designing solutions to open-ended problems. Teams develop conceptual solutions to problems and then work through the design process to arrive at the creation of an actual artifact. This artifact may be fully functional or simply a model, prototype, or other representation of the complete system. STEM instructors and students should give careful attention to selecting the digital tools for collaboration. Some collaborative tools offer affordances and features that compliment the communication processes in one phase of the design process while another other tool may be better suited for the tasks specific to another phase.

Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education has become one of the fastest growing trends in curriculum development around the globe. Integrated STEM education undoubtedly forms a new multifaceted phenomenon in education to prepare students to meet the new challenges of the 21st century. Science, Mathematics, and Technology education have always been a part of the K-12 curriculum as individualized disciplines. However, engineering is rarely taught in primary schools, and schools have no empirical experience of how to develop and implement an integrated STEM curriculum for students at the early age. In this project, an exploratory study of design-based research on integrated STEM curriculum with a local primary school in Hong Kong is reported. Through this study, it provides the first-hand experience of how integrated STEM education may be designed and implemented in the future. The findings may help schools in K-12 recognize the challenges and opportunities in bring the integrative learning to students.

9 - Online STEM teaching of practical chemistry: Challenges and possibilities

Background: During their university studies, student teachers are equipped for the teaching profession in various domains of knowledge and practice. In addition to learning pedagogic skills for practice purposes, they also expand their knowledge of the subjects that they will teach. In mathematics teacher education, one important principle is that the content of the subject must, somehow, be fused with the pedagogy in what has become known as mathematical knowledge for teaching (MKT). Although several studies have been conducted about students’ performance of MKT, there is little research in South Africa about how students routinely experience the coursework itself. In this study, I argue that mathematics knowledge and skills should ideally precede the teaching of pedagogy, for reasons of communicating the concepts clearly and for building a foundation of mathematical thinking prior to practising teaching skills.Aim: To find out what the student teachers’ self-reported experience of one component of a mathematics content course are, namely their engagement with problem-solving tasks.Methods: A qualitative case study of student teachers’ learning, with the primary source of data, the student teachers’ reflective journal entries. Data were analysed through coding, categorising and thematised mindful of the MPSKT framework.Results: The findings indicated that, whilst the students’ understanding of the processes of problem-solving was deepened during the course, matters of pedagogy arose spontaneously.

This study aims to identify the level of technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK) of mathematics trainee teachers at Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris (UPSI) and explore their teaching practices during practical training at school. The study was conducted in two phases using a mix-method research. In the first phase, a survey method using a questionnaire was carried out on 156 trainee teachers of Bachelor of Mathematics Education (AT14) and Bachelor of Science (Mathematics) with Education (AT48). The instrument used was a questionnaire that measures the level of content knowledge, pedagogy, technology and TPCK of mathematics. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, namely the mean. While in the second phase, the interview method involved four trainee teachers were performed. The instrument used was the semi-structured interview protocol to assess the trainee teacher's TPCK integration in their teaching practice. Data were analyzed using the content analysis. The findings showed that the level of knowledge of TPCK among trainee teachers was moderate with overall mean score of 3.60. This level did not show significant differences between the two programs with mean scores of 3.601 for the AT14 group and 3.603 for the AT48 group. However, there was a difference for gender classification such that the female trainees had mean score of 3.58 and male trainees with mean score of 3.72. Although students' TPCK level was moderate, the level of content knowledge (CK), technological knowledge (TK) and pedagogical knowledge (PK), showed a higher level with overall mean scores of 3.75, 3.87 and 3.84 respectively. The findings also showed that in terms of content knowledge, trainee teacher's learning mathematics background was good, but the knowledge of mathematics was limited in the curriculum, philosophy and application aspect. In terms of pedagogical content knowledge, all respondents tend to use lecture and discussion methods in teaching Trigonometry topic in almost the entire teaching and learning sessions. In terms of using technology in teaching and learning process, all respondents were more likely to use PowerPoint presentation as well as assisted by the use of a scientific calculator. The use of PowerPoint was limited in explaining the title and its content and the calculators were used during practice sessions. The four trainee teachers were still at the recognizing and acceptance levels of TPCK integration during their teaching practice. This study indicates that UPSI trainee teachers should be given exposure in the use of information and communication technology and trained to provide alternative teaching strategies in more creative ways if there are obstacles when integrating technology in teaching and learning process.

Computational thinking has become a crucial skill for students because it gives them the tools to solve complicated issues using organized methods. Implementing Problem-based learning and Design-based learning in science learning has significantly enhanced students' skills. This research aims to ascertain which of the two models is better for facilitating computational thinking skills among middle school students in science learning. The study used a sample of 69 middle school students selected through random sampling. This research employs a quasi-experimental, multi-group, post-test-only design. The instrument utilized in this research is a computational thinking skills test comprising five questions. The data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA to test the hypotheses. Tukey test results indicate that the mean difference score between the PBL and DBL groups is 1.2609, with a significance value greater than 0.05. The study confirms that Problem-based learning is more effective than Design-based learning in facilitating students' computational thinking skills. However, the difference between the two is not particularly noteworthy. PBL and DBL represent viable pedagogical approaches that can enhance middle school students' computational thinking skills in science learning. Keywords: problem-based learning, design-based learning, computational thinking skill. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.23960/jpmipa/v25i3.pp1214-1223

Understanding the nature of science (NOS) has emerged as a core curricular goal since at least the 1960s. While science education reforms around the world have shed light on various epistemic and social underpinnings of science, how science curriculum documents portray the nature of other related disciplines such as mathematics and engineering has drawn little attention. Such lack of attention is surprising, given the growing interest among educators in the integrated approach to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education and the frequent emphasis on STEM in recent curriculum policy. The study reported in this paper aimed to understand how recent science education reform documents from the USA, Korea and Taiwan compare with regard to their representation of the nature of STEM disciplines. Using the framework of the family resemblance approach (FRA), we present a comparative analysis of three recent science education standards documents to examine their coverage of the epistemic underpinnings of STEM disciplines, particularly with regard to the disciplinary aims, values and practices. The results indicate that the features specific to science and shared by science and engineering were most frequently addressed in the standards documents, whereas mathematics-related features were rarely mentioned. Furthermore, there was variation in the coverage in terms of the nature of STEM disciplines. Based on the findings, we discuss the contributions of the FRA framework in analysing STEM curricula in an interdisciplinary manner and make suggestions for integrating the nature of STEM disciplines in science curriculum documents.

The shortage of graduates in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), has led to numerous attempts to increase students’ interest in STEM. One emerging approach that has the potential to improve students’ motivation for STEM is integrated STEM education. Nonetheless, the implementation of this new instructional strategy is not straightforward due to the lack of consensus about instructional practices in integrated STEM. This paper contributes to this challenge by providing a well-defined framework for instructional practices in integrated STEM in secondary education, based on the results of a systematic review of existing literature. The framework contains five key principles: integration of STEM content, problem-centered learning, inquiry-based learning, design-based learning and cooperative learning. The proposed framework has several benefits, including its applicability in the classroom and the possibility to describe integrated STEM on multiple dimensions. Nonetheless, further research is necessary to investigate the effects of integrated STEM on students’ cognitive and affective learning outcomes.

The purposes of this study were (1) to explore the relationship between mathematics education and the rural context and (2) to determine the usefulness of a social theory of learning (Wenger, 1998) to account for students' participation in advanced high school mathematics courses. Qualitative methods were used to gather data in a small, rural high school in the Pacific Northwest. Data gathered included a student survey, interviews with students and mathematics teachers, observations in mathematics classes, and documents related to the curriculum, the school, and the community. The findings suggest that high school mathematics education is related to the rural context in two ways. First, the small size produces characteristics unique to rural high schools. Specifically, a small number of mathematics teachers has considerable ability to shape the curriculum, instruction, and students' views of mathematics. The mathematics course offerings reflect a college preparatory curriculum with few mathematics electives offered. Students' experiences are quite similar and their beliefs about the nature and usefulness of mathematics are fairly uniform. Second, mathematics education is related to the socioeconomic aspects of a rural community. Students' knowledge of mathematics that is used in adults' work and daily life comes from experiences with parents and community members. The usefulness of mathematics, and advanced high school mathematics specifically, may not be apparent for students living in communities without mathematics-intensive jobs. Rural high school students studying advanced mathematics are likely exceeding the formal mathematical education level of their parents. The findings also indicated that Wenger's notions of identity and three modes of belonging provided a useful framework for understanding whether or not students participated in advanced mathematics classes. Students' participation in advanced math classes was related to their engagement in the day-to-day practice of mathematics education in the classroom, the place their engagement fit within the broader experiences of life in their imagination, and the alignment of their energies.

Community service aims to provide insight into knowledge of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) approach, to improve professionalism for elementary school teachers at SDN Cilisung 1 and 2, Bandung. In addition, it provides steps how to apply STEM approach for learners through training activities on STEM. The target of the training is elementary school teachers in SDN Cilisung 1 and 2 Bandung. Problems are solved in three stages of activity, namely preparation, implementation and evaluation. Preparation is done by conducting a preliminary survey to see the conditions in the field regarding teachers’ professional development. Implementation is done by training, using lecture method that is with presentation technique, followed by practice of micro teaching about STEM. Evaluation of activities carried out for each stage by collecting and summarizing data from each stage of activity. The results of the training activities show the success rate with an indication of material conformity with the needs of SDN Cilisung 1 and 2 teachers, positive responses from the participants, and most participants have understood the STEM approach.

NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract Partnership to Improve Student Achievement through Real World Learning in Engineering, Science, Mathematics and Technology Abstract Through a state-sponsored Math-Science Partnership (MSP) program, elementary teachers in New Jersey are receiving professional development in innovative, research-based, science and engineering curricula; classroom-based technical and pedagogical support; and ongoing coaching and mentoring. Two universities, a science center, and a teacher education institution are collaborating on delivering project services to schools. The program is strengthening the science content knowledge of 56 Grade 3-5 teachers in six urban districts in northern New Jersey. Preliminary findings from the pre and post tests of experimental group teachers indicate that participants significantly increased their content knowledge in specific life science topics and concepts involving the engineering design process. A study between the experimental and comparison group of teachers indicated a significant difference between the achievements attained by the two groups. This paper describes the first year of a three-year effort. Introduction The Partnership to Improve Student Achievement (PISA) project is a New Jersey Department of Education-sponsored Math-Science Partnership (MSP) grant, which derives from a U.S. Department of Education (USED) grant. USED MSP program goals focus on strengthening teacher content knowledge in science and mathematics in order to improve student achievement in these subjects. The involvement of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) faculty at institutions of higher education is a requirement of all MSP grants. The PISA program presents a novel approach to accomplishing MSP goals by integrating the use of exemplary, research-based elementary engineering curricula, engineering explorations and problem-based activities to strengthen teachers’ science learning. An intensive summer institute, followed by in-class mentoring and coaching support, and online help, represent key program interventions. An important component of the project design is the requirement that teachers work in groups on the design of a STEM Learning Module (SLM) that incorporates science, mathematics, and technology toward the solution of an engineering problem. In creating this SLM, teachers engage in professional inquiry related to STEM content, pedagogy, assessment, and curricular resources relevant to the engineering challenge they are implementing or creating. Teachers work collaboratively on developing the module, including identification of student science learning objectives (tied to the district science curriculum and standards), lesson plans, implementation and classroom management plans, and student assessments. The overarching aim of the three-year PISA program is to: (a) demonstrate and institutionalize within participating schools a methodology, supporting curriculum materials, and other instructional resources and strategies to increase student interest, engagement, and achievement in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology and further, to (b) promote a culture of inventiveness and creativity that calls upon students to demonstrate 21st century workforce skills and to apply science and mathematics toward the solution of relevant, real-world problems. Key