Exploring K-3 Educator Perspectives on STEM Learning

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) instruction has become a priority b across the globe in recent years. Elementary educators are seeking ways to integrate STEM in all areas of learning. However, research indicates that most elementary teachers grapple with identifying and using appropriate STEM tools and instructional strategies that teach STEM as an integrated subject. This paper reports on an exploratory study examining the experiences of K-3 teachers (n=26) who contributed to the development of a summer STEM institute. It also examines in greater detail the perceptions of twelve of those participants who participated in the professional development institute. The study used quantitative and qualitative approaches to collect and analyze data. Findings indicate that teachers appreciate the use of inexpensive STEM tools and that they recognize the potential that an integrated STEM project-based learning approach has for young students. Implications for teacher education and professional development are offered along with recommendations for future research.

Eating Healthy: Understanding Added Sugar through Proportional Reasoning

Research suggests that integrated STEM activities can best support students in developing their mathematical and scientific understanding. On one hand, while science provides mathematics with real-life authentic problems to investigate, mathematics provides science powerful tools to explore those problems. In line with this call, in this study, we designed an integrated lesson at the cross-section of proportional reasoning and added sugar present in food products to explore how added sugar provides students with a meaningful context to engage in proportional reasoning and how proportional reasoning helps students identify the quantity of added sugar present in different food products and provides students with a platform to initiate a conversation around quality of food products. Developed on the theoretical framework of Realistic Mathematics Education (RME), this lesson was remotely implemented on three middle school students. The result section highlights the design principle of the lesson that provided students with an opportunity to construct an understanding of both the disciplines through a mutual interaction.

Beyond the basics: a detailed conceptual framework of integrated STEM

Given the large variation in conceptualizations and enactment of K− 12 integrated STEM, this paper puts forth a detailed conceptual framework for K− 12 integrated STEM education that can be used by researchers, educators, and curriculum developers as a common vision. Our framework builds upon the extant integrated STEM literature to describe seven central characteristics of integrated STEM: (a) centrality of engineering design, (b) driven by authentic problems, (c) context integration, (d) content integration, (e) STEM practices, (f) twenty-first century skills, and (g) informing students about STEM careers. Our integrated STEM framework is intended to provide more specific guidance to educators and support integrated STEM research, which has been impeded by the lack of a deep conceptualization of the characteristics of integrated STEM. The lack of a detailed integrated STEM framework thus far has prevented the field from systematically collecting data in classrooms to understand the nature and quality of integrated STEM instruction; this delays research related to the impact on student outcomes, including academic achievement and affect. With the framework presented here, we lay the groundwork for researchers to explore the impact of specific aspects of integrated STEM or the overall quality of integrated STEM instruction on student outcomes.