Education Commons^™

Challenges In Stem Learning In Australian Schools, Michael J. Timms, Kathryn Moyle, Paul R. Weldon, Pru Mitchell

Pru Mitchell

Australian STEM education seems caught in a whirlpool of problems that are contributing to one another. Student engagement and performance in STEM are declining, but we do not have the supply of qualified teachers we need to improve learning. The STEM curriculum is unbalanced and fragmented, leading to less interest among students. It is not possible to break out of the downward cycle from within the current system and it requires policy changes that address the issues raised in this report. This means developing well-considered, systemic and joined-up policies that address the following challenges: Improving student outcomes, building the STEM …

Challenges In Stem Learning In Australian Schools: Literature And Policy Review, Michael J. Timms, Kathryn Moyle, Paul R. Weldon, Pru Mitchell

Pru Mitchell

This literature and policy review outlines the complex context related to STEM learning in Australian schools and focuses on student outcomes, the teacher workforce and the curriculum. This paper also sheds light on possible policy directions by examining lessons from other countries. STEM education is a broad enterprise that starts in early childhood education, continues through the years of schooling and extends into tertiary education supported by contributions from extracurricular and enrichment activities, science centres and museums. However, the focus in this document is on primary and secondary schooling. Australian STEM education seems caught in a whirlpool of problems that …

Challenges In Stem Learning In Australian Schools: Literature And Policy Review, Michael J. Timms, Kathryn Moyle, Paul R. Weldon, Pru Mitchell

Dr Michael J Timms

This literature and policy review outlines the complex context related to STEM learning in Australian schools and focuses on student outcomes, the teacher workforce and the curriculum. This paper also sheds light on possible policy directions by examining lessons from other countries. STEM education is a broad enterprise that starts in early childhood education, continues through the years of schooling and extends into tertiary education supported by contributions from extracurricular and enrichment activities, science centres and museums. However, the focus in this document is on primary and secondary schooling. Australian STEM education seems caught in a whirlpool of problems that …

Challenges In Stem Learning In Australian Schools, Michael J. Timms, Kathryn Moyle, Paul R. Weldon, Pru Mitchell

Dr Michael J Timms

Australian STEM education seems caught in a whirlpool of problems that are contributing to one another. Student engagement and performance in STEM are declining, but we do not have the supply of qualified teachers we need to improve learning. The STEM curriculum is unbalanced and fragmented, leading to less interest among students. It is not possible to break out of the downward cycle from within the current system and it requires policy changes that address the issues raised in this report. This means developing well-considered, systemic and joined-up policies that address the following challenges: Improving student outcomes, building the STEM …

Teaching Place-Based Science In Kindergarten, Lucy Atkins

Capstones, Research Projects, and Curricula

This action research explores how kindergarten students learn about forces and motion through inquiry-based, place-based methods. The learning took place as part of an existing day spent learning outdoors, known as Forest Monday, that includes extended time for free play. The three sub-questions addressed 1) science content learning, 2) science practice application, and 3) the incorporation of science content and practices into free play time outdoors. It was a mixed-methods study, with science assessment data supporting observations and interviews. The participants were 12 kindergarten students in a rural elementary school. All students were assessed and interviewed but observations were focused …

Challenges In Stem Learning In Australian Schools, Michael J. Timms, Kathryn Moyle, Paul R. Weldon, Pru Mitchell

Policy Insights

Australian STEM education seems caught in a whirlpool of problems that are contributing to one another. Student engagement and performance in STEM are declining, but we do not have the supply of qualified teachers we need to improve learning. The STEM curriculum is unbalanced and fragmented, leading to less interest among students. It is not possible to break out of the downward cycle from within the current system and it requires policy changes that address the issues raised in this report. This means developing well-considered, systemic and joined-up policies that address the following challenges: Improving student outcomes, building the STEM …

Challenges In Stem Learning In Australian Schools: Literature And Policy Review, Michael J. Timms, Kathryn Moyle, Paul R. Weldon, Pru Mitchell

Policy Analysis and Program Evaluation

This literature and policy review outlines the complex context related to STEM learning in Australian schools and focuses on student outcomes, the teacher workforce and the curriculum. This paper also sheds light on possible policy directions by examining lessons from other countries. STEM education is a broad enterprise that starts in early childhood education, continues through the years of schooling and extends into tertiary education supported by contributions from extracurricular and enrichment activities, science centres and museums. However, the focus in this document is on primary and secondary schooling. Australian STEM education seems caught in a whirlpool of problems that …

Changes In Teacher Thinking And Action In Response To The Next Generation Science Standards, Angela R. Bowden

Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the role of K-12 science teachers’ understandings and perceptions of the Next Generation Science Standards, implementation of the new standards in the classroom, and potential barriers to implementation as reform stakeholders had envisioned. Grounded in the relevant literature and working from the Teacher-Centered System Reform framework, this study employed a quantitative approach to data collection. The TCSR Model framed this study by linking teachers’ demographic and professional profile, teaching experience, professional development, district-level, school-level, and classroom-level contexts and illuminates the dynamic effect the factors have on teachers’ thinking and their practice. The study recognizes teachers’ knowledge and …

Fostering Giftedness And Creativity: Implementing Engineering By Design In Kuwait, Nathan Mentzer, Philip A. Reed, Meshari Alnouri, Mohammad Barbarji

STEMPS Faculty Publications

The article offers information on a partnership between the International Technology & Engineering Educators Association (ITEEA) and the Sabah Al Ahmad Center for Giftedness and Creativity (SACGC) to support innovation and design education. The partnership is aimed towards the implementation of the Engineering byDesign (EbD) curriculum and contribute towards building a Kuwaiti society that fosters giftedness and creativity.

The Effects Of Teaching Middle School Students Math Using The Gifted Supplementary Curriculum “Mawhiba” On Students’ Academic Achievement And Attitude Toward Math In Public Schools In Saudi Arabia, Ahmed M. Alreshidi

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the use of a supplementary math curriculum, “Mawhiba,” that was designed for gifted students, would be appropriate for regular students in a mixed-abilities classroom. The researcher investigated the effects of implementing the Mawhiba enriched supplementary math curriculum on students’ achievements in mathematics and on students’ attitudes toward mathematics in Hail State, Saudi Arabia. The research design was an experimental randomized subject pretest, post-test, control group design. Two schools were chosen (a female middle school and a male middle school). The sample consisted of 121 students (60 males and 61 females). The …

Teachers’ Incorporation Of Argumentation To Support Engineering Learning In Stem Integration Curricula, Corey A. Mathis, Emilie A. Siverling, Aran W. Glancy, Tamara J. Moore

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

One of the fundamental practices identified in Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) is argumentation, which has been researched in P-12 science education for the previous two decades but has yet to be studied within the context of P-12 engineering education. This research explores how elementary and middle school science teachers incorporated argumentation into engineering design-based STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) integration curricular units they developed during a professional development program. To gain a better understanding of how teachers included argumentation in their curricula, a multiple case study approach was conducted using four STEM integration units. While evidence of argumentation …

Experiencing The Implementation Of New Inquiry Science Curricula, Peter S. Ower

College of Education Theses and Dissertations

Using a phenomenological methodology, a cohort of four experienced science teachers was interviewed about their experience transitioning from traditional, teacher and fact-centered science curricula to inquiry-based curricula. Each teacher participated in two interviews that focused on their teaching backgrounds, their experience teaching the prior traditional curriculum, and their experience teaching the new inquiry-based curriculum. The findings are presented as a narrative of each teachers’ experience with the new curriculum implementation. Analyzing the data revealed four key themes. 1) The teachers felt trapped by the old curriculum as it did not align with their positive views of teaching science through inquiry. …

Teaching Undergraduates How To Analyze, Ryan Andrew Nivens, Rosalind Raymond Gann

Ryan Andrew Nivens

Analysis is typically listed in taxonomies of higher order thinking. Academics consider these taxonomies worthwhile, but they are hard to teach and we are apt to ignore them. Today higher education is criticized for “dumbing down” curriculum or lowering standards. To rectify this, many policies at the state or national level are requiring higher education institutions to change. In K-12 education, Race to the Top and Common Core requirements are placing new demands on K-12 teacher preparation, which include evaluation of the analysis skills of pre-service teachers. But professors do not always view their disciplines as the proper place for …

Social Justice Driven Stem Learning (Stemj): A Curricular Framework For Teaching Stem In A Social Justice Driven, Urban, College Access Program., Paul E. Madden, Catherine Wong, Anne C. Vera Cruz, Chad Olle, Mike Barnett

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

This article presents the curricular framework for a social justice driven STEM curriculum (i.e., S_TEMJ) within an out-of-school time program for Boston Public high school students (i.e., College Bound) at Boston College. Starting with a discussion of the authors’ ideological positionality within critical social justice discourses, the authors share how Bronfenbrenner’s (1994) General Ecological Model provides a conceptual framework for operationalizing social justice inquiry with and through STEM. Positioning this curriculum within the College Bound program’s overall design gives readers a sense of how the program’s College and Career, Identity and Society, and S_TEMJ curriculums work …

"Returning To The Root" Of The Problem: Improving The Social Condition Of African Americans Through Science And Mathematics Education, Vanessa R. Pitts Bannister, Julius Davis, Jomo Mutegi, Latasha Thompson, Deborah Lewis

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

The underachievement and underrepresentation of African Americans in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) disciplines have been well documented. Efforts to improve the STEM education of African Americans continue to focus on relationships between teaching and learning and factors such as culture, race, power, class, learning preferences, cultural styles and language. Although this body of literature is deemed valuable, it fails to help STEM teacher educators and teachers critically assess other important factors such as pedagogy and curriculum. In this article, the authors argue that both pedagogy and curriculum should be centered on the social condition of African Americans – …

Environmental Stewardship: Protecting Our Planet’S Future, Barbara Pierce

School of Education and Leadership Student Capstone Theses and Dissertations

The research question addressed in this project was how can Understanding by Design be used to create a curriculum that can be used to teach upper elementary students the basis of environmental stewardship? The motivating factor behind this project was a noticeable lack of outdoor exploration in public elementary schools, combined with limited science instruction in the classroom. Designing the curriculum using and Understanding by Design framework, the unit includes lessons on habitats, food webs, natural resources, and interdependence. Methods of teaching include hands-on and multimedia lessons, and time for free outdoors exploration. The unit culminates in a group presentation …

Quantitative Literacy For The Future Flourishing Of Our Students: A Guiding Aim For Mathematics Education, Samuel L. Tunstall

Numeracy

In this essay, I examine the extent to which mathematics education and education for quantitative literacy support students’ present and future flourishing, a concept that entails realizing objective goods in a life lived from the inside. This perspective requires disentangling philosophical assumptions about the aims of mathematics education, which—in the context of flourishing—I take to be a hybrid of those that have informed curricular discussions over the past two centuries. In the process, I problematize ("make strange") many of the common reasons given for students learning mathematics, including: learning it for one’s career, for one’s logical reasoning skills, or …

Using Technology And Media-Rich Platforms To Help Teach The Pythagorean Theorem, Hui Fang Huang Su, Denise Gates, Janice Haramis, Farrah Bell, Claude Manigat, Kristin Hierpe, Lourivaldo Da Silva

Transformations

The history of mathematics is quite extensive, dating back to ancient times and elapsing several centuries. Many great mathematicians, philosophers, scientists, and scholars have contributed to mathematics on the subject we see today. For the purpose of this research project, we have chosen to highlight the great mathematician Pythagoras and his famous Pythagorean Theorem. We investigate the history of the Pythagorean Theorem, relationships among Pythagorean numbers, and unusual proofs of the Theorem. This paper provides a suggestive lesson plan, activity, and presentation for classroom use.

1. Types Of Alignment: Presentations & Demos Assignment, Sarah O'Leary-Driscoll

Sequence Alignments

Pairwise Alignment: DNA

Pairwise Alignment: Protein

Multiple Sequence Alignment: DNA

Multiple Sequence Alignment: Protein

Coding In The Curriculum : Fad Or Foundational?, Leon Sterling

2009 - 2019 ACER Research Conferences

There has been an unprecedented push to revitalise interest in STEM education. Much of the discussion of the ’T’ in STEM education has been whether coding should be a central element of school education. This talk investigates the arguments for and against ‘coding in the curriculum.’ No sensible person thinks that teaching coding in the classroom will produce master programmers’, any more than teaching music in the school curriculum will produce master musicians. However the teaching of music can encourage some students to become musicians and the same would be true for coding. The issue is more what concepts are …

Quantitative Literacy At Michigan State University, 3: Designing General Education Mathematics Courses, Samuel L. Tunstall, Vincent Melfi, Jeffrey Craig, Richard Edwards, Andrew Krause, Bronlyn Wassink, Victor Piercey

Numeracy

In this paper, we describe the process at Michigan State University whereby we have created two courses, Math 101 and 102, designed to foster numeracy and alleviate mathematics anxiety. The courses--which are not sequential--provide a means of satisfying the University's general education requirement without taking college algebra or calculus, among other options. They are context-driven and broken into modules such as "The World and Its People" and "Health and Risk." They have been highly successful thus far, with students providing positive feedback on their interest in the material and the utility they see of it in their daily lives. We …

Effectively Communicating With English Language Learners Using Sheltered Instruction, Geeta Verma, Lisa Martin-Hansen, Jerald Pepper

Geeta Verma

Sheltered instruction is not a commercial program but is a set of instructional practices used specifically with English Language Learners (ELL). It embeds existing instructional strategies such as wait time, visual organizers, group work, and allowing students to actively respond for immediate feedback. Sheltered instruction "integrates lesson knowledge and concepts with opportunities to practice using English by reading, writing, listening and speaking" (Colburn and Echevaria 2001). This article describes the four elements of sheltered instruction (Group work, Wait time, Group-response technique, Supplemental materials).

1. "Investigating The Impact Of Changes In Carbon Dioxide Concentration On Ecosystems", Sarah O'Leary-Driscoll, Crystal Randall

Ecosystem Disruption & Climate Change

Question: Does the concentration of carbon dioxide affect air temperature in a closed environment?

2a: "Illinois Carbon Dioxide Emissions Activity", Sarah O'Leary-Driscoll, Crystal Randall

Ecosystem Disruption & Climate Change

Your goal for this activity is to compare the different sources of carbon dioxide emissions, stemming from the consumption of fossil fuels, in Illinois. To do this you will be working with data spanning from 1980 to 2012.

3: "The Current Extinction: Defaunation & Ecosystem Disruption", Sarah O'Leary-Driscoll, Crystal Randall

Ecosystem Disruption & Climate Change

Information taken from: Dirzo, R. et al (2014). Defaunation in the Anthropocene. Science, 345(401).

Scientists estimate, conservatively, that there are 5 to 9 million different animal species on the planet. But that number is continually changing, and unfortunately, dropping, as we are likely losing 11,000- 58,000 species annually, and evidence suggests that on average, there has been a decline of about 28% in terms of numbers of individuals within a species over the last four decades. Both of these statistics are vitally important. The critical nature of the first is perhaps more obvious, as total loss of a species is …

Why The American Superpower Has Mediocre Educational Rankings, Madeline R. Hays

Undergraduate Research Posters

Although education holds implications for economic growth, scientific progress, and political participation, the United States remains on the lower end of educational quality compared to other industrial and first-world nations. Despite substantial efforts by the American government to mend this issue, reforms have yielded minimal improvement in results. Identifying the reasons for the declining nature of US education is essential in understanding how to improve the current academic state. Why has there been a decline in education quality in America compared to other first-world countries since World War II? In order to distinguish the characteristics correlating with low-achievement in the …

An Investigation Into The Accessibility Of Ap Calculus, Brian Austin Dodge

Capstones, Research Projects, and Curricula

This is a mixed methods ethnographic study conducted to determine what obstacles students face when approaching AP Calculus. I focused my study on home economics, peer pressure, ELL status and home support. Overall, I found that being a student who is ELL (hereafter defined as a student who was or currently is required to take ACCESS testing) had the most negative effect of the previously listed factors. Home economics and peer pressure were inconclusive or often had no effect. Finally, having a supportive home life in the form of parents who value education, encourage goal-setting, and set high expectations had …

The Inclusion Of False, Falsified, And Falsifiable Data That Favor An Evolutionary Worldview In The High School Science Curriculum Of Public And Private Schools In The Philippines, Jerry F. Smith

Christian Perspectives in Education

This paper examines a curricular issue in general within public and private high schools in the Philippines. This paper presents six known and documented errant points found in textbooks that promote an evolutionary worldview and are commonly found in local high school biology textbooks. The proposed solutions present several questions designed to facilitate formation of the readers’ own views regarding this phenomenon.

Embracing Learner’S Ideas About Diffusion And Osmosis: A Coupled-Inquiry Approach, Ryan Sweeney, Lisa Martin-Hansen, Geeta Verma, John Dunkhase

Geeta Verma

Learning about osmosis and diffusion is often a challenging task for middle school students. Here the authors present a lesson that was converted from a “cookbook” lab (McLaughlin and Thompson 2007) into a more inquiry-oriented lab that uses inquiry teaching strategies and hands-on investigations to teach middle-grade students about osmosis and diffusion.

Evolution Practice 2, Imsa Biology Team

Evolution

Evolution Problems