Creative teaching in STEM

If Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines in higher education are to retain students, there needs to be a shift towards teaching in more enriching and interesting ways. Creative teaching needs to become more prominent in STEM. This article presents a study that defines creative teaching in the STEM context and investigates attempts to teach creatively as experienced by nine STEM educators in an Australian university. The results highlighted that achieving creative teaching is difficult and that the element of surprise is essential. Despite the struggle required, creative teaching afforded fulfilment for teachers. We examine the characteristics of those interviewed and suggest strategies for fostering creative teaching. The findings extend beyond the STEM discipline.     

Trends,Issues and Possibilities for an Interdisciplinary STEM Curriculum

Science & Education - In the last decade, the term STEM has been increasingly picked up internationally and come to represent a solution to a range of issues. Within education, STEM is being...     

大学生创新活动体系建设

作为培养高素质创新人才的基地,高等学校的重要工作目标之一就是培养大学生的创新素质,包括创新意识、创新精神和创新能力。而要实现这一目标,构建和完善合理的大学生创新活动体系与功能是重要的关键点。本文从学生、教师与高校三者在体系中担任的角色和功能出发,分析高校创新活动基本体系和功能。     

The Impact of Design-Based STEM Integration Curricula on Student Achievement in Engineering,Science, and Mathematics

The new science education reform documents call for integration of engineering into K-12 science classes. Engineering design and practices are new to most science teachers, meaning that implementing effective engineering instruction is likely to be challenging. This quasi-experimental study explored the influence of teacher-developed, engineering design-based science curriculum units on learning and achievement among grade 4–8 students of different races, gender, special education status, and limited English proficiency (LEP) status. Treatment and control students (n = 4450) completed pretest and posttest assessments in science, engineering, and mathematics as well as a state-mandated mathematics test. Single-level regression results for science outcomes favored the treatment for one science assessment (physical science, heat transfer), but multilevel analyses showed no significant treatment effect. We also found that engineering integration had different effects across race and gender and that teacher gender can reduce or exacerbate the gap in engineering achievement for student subgroups depending on the outcome. Other teacher factors such as the quality of engineering-focused science units and engineering instruction were predictive of student achievement in engineering. Implications for practice are discussed.     

“支架”理论在高中英语课堂活动中的应用

"支架"教学已经成为教育界关注和研究的重要话题,并从理论研究转向实证和应用研究。笔者将支架理论应用于西藏区内某高中英语教学活动中,历时9个周,采用测试、问卷、观察笔记的方式收集数据,并使用SPSS22.0对数据进行分析,结果显示:支架教学能被学生接受,并且能够在很大程度上增强其学习兴趣、学习动力和自信心,帮助减少学生的焦虑并有助于培养良好的外语学习习惯,利于新课改实施,转变以往授课和学习方式,做到以学生为中心。     

Science Teacher Efficacy and Extrinsic Factors Toward Professional Development Using Video Games in a Design-Based Research Model: The Next Generation of STEM Learning

Designed-based research principles guided the study of 51 secondary-science teachers in the second year of a 3-year professional development project. The project entailed the creation of student-centered, inquiry-based, science, video games. A professional development model appropriate for infusing innovative technologies into standards-based curricula was employed to determine how science teacher’s attitudes and efficacy where impacted while designing science-based video games. The study’s mixed-method design ascertained teacher efficacy on five factors (General computer use, Science Learning, Inquiry Teaching and Learning, Synchronous chat/text, and Playing Video Games) related to technology and gaming using a web-based survey). Qualitative data in the form of online blog posts was gathered during the project to assist in the triangulation and assessment of teacher efficacy. Data analyses consisted of an Analysis of Variance and serial coding of teacher reflective responses. Results indicated participants who used computers daily have higher efficacy while using inquiry-based teaching methods and science teaching and learning. Additional emergent findings revealed possible motivating factors for efficacy. This professional development project was focused on inquiry as a pedagogical strategy, standard-based science learning as means to develop content knowledge, and creating video games as technological knowledge. The project was consistent with the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK) framework where overlapping circles of the three components indicates development of an integrated understanding of the suggested relationships. Findings provide suggestions for development of standards-based science education software, its integration into the curriculum and, strategies for implementing technology into teaching practices.     

论多元文化和跨文化教育背景下好奇心和创造性头脑培养的需求:叙事的可能性

当下,公共教育的主要任务是为多元文化和跨文化教育背景提供民主的教育形式。随着跨国移民以及商品、服务和观念的国际化流动越来越频繁,形成了文化方面的复杂共同体。对好奇心和创造性头脑培养的需求不仅仅明确地适用于多元文化环境,也同样适用于以白人为主的主流社会。课程方案和学术著作往往侧重于认识到少数族裔学习主流文化和语言的必要性与其他需求,以及帮助少数族裔文化适应主流文化的方式。注重好奇心和创造性头脑发展的民主教育对课程与教学提出了以下要求:课程与教学要超越单向的一个文化对另一个文化的适应从而实现文化之间的互相适应互相学习;在这样的课程与教学中,所有的孩子,无论出身于哪种文化背景,都得以去了解、适应和创造一个不断变化的社会。注重研究代际家庭文化教育史的课程与教学的叙事方法有望推动这一目标的实现。     

Distributed Scaffolding in a Service-Learning Course

This article argues that the instructional scaffolding metaphor may be reconceived as distributed scaffolding when multiple means of influence are provided in a service-learning setting. In the service-learning course described here, the professor's role is largely as designer of activity settings for preservice teacher candidates, through which the students construct their own conceptions of teaching culturally diverse populations. The course involves a set of interrelated settings: a tutoring experience at the city's alternative high school; the reading of books from a menu of texts that cover a range of diversity topics; the discussion of these books in book club meetings independent of the professor's direct influence; and the whole-class discussion of these texts, led by each student book club. The distributed nature of the course scaffolding is illustrated with an excerpt from one book club's discussion.     

Troubling STEM: Making a Case for an Ethics/STEM Partnership

Set against the backdrop of a STEM-based (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) activity in a teacher education science methods class, the author examines the need for ethics education to be partnered with STEM education. To make the case, the origin of the STEM initiative, undertaken and strongly supported by both US government and corporate sources, is briefly recounted. The STSE initiative (science, technology, society and environment) is posited as a counterpoint to STEM. Also considered are: (a) an historical perspective of science and technology as these impact difficult individual and social decision making; (b) STEM knowledge generation considered through the lens of Habermas’ threefold knowledge typology; and (c) the experiences of the teacher candidates working through the STEM activity when an ethical challenge is posed. The author demonstrates the need for a moral component for science education and makes the case for a partnership between STEM and ethics education. Further, such a partnership has been shown to increase student enjoyment and motivation for their science studies. Three possible ethical frameworks are examined for their theoretical and practical utility in a science classroom.     

活动课程中的创新教育简析

活动课程在发展学生创造力方面具有优势,要注意研究在活动课程中实施创新教育的主要机制和基本范式,合理设置活动课程,将有助于培养中小学生创新精神。     

Scaffolding Cognitive Processes in a Marketing Curriculum

This article highlights the importance of improving the cognitive processes of students in business studies today. When developing a curriculum in business studies at higher education level, thorough consideration should be given to all components of the learning and assessment processes. They should be tailored to real world dynamics so that they benefit students when they enter the world of work, and thus become a yardstick of successful changes in the management of higher education marketing programmes themselves.     

走特色道路 立创新品牌

为了更好地培养学生实践能力和创新能力,加快实验教学改革和实验室建设,我系实施实验室结构重组、创建特色实验教学体系、改进教学方法和手段、加强实验队伍建设、建设大学生科技创新基地等一系列举措,效果良好。为创建国家级实验示范中心打下了坚实基础,为实验教学建设树立了创新品牌。     

Scaffolding in problem-based learning for low-achieving learners

This research investigates scaffolding approaches for supporting low-achieving learners in a problem-based learning environment. The study was conducted in a vocational school with 3 different approaches to scaffolding using 3 groups in addition to a control group. The area of focus was a learning module using computer spreadsheets. The results showed that there was a significant difference in outcomes among the 4 groups. The group that used a semicollaborative approach combined with worksheet performed significantly higher on posttests than the other group. This study illustrates the value of scaffolding for low achievers in problem-based learning environments and identifies the specific type of scaffolding that is most effective.     

浅谈幼儿创造性美术活动的指导

美术活动是促进幼儿发展的重要内容．美术活动能更好地培养和发展幼儿的创造性思维,有利于培养幼儿的审美能力和表现力,有利于幼儿的身心健康得到全面和谐的发展．因此教师教学中要注重对幼儿的创造性美术活动进行指导．     

Implicit STEM ability beliefs predict secondary school students' STEM self-efficacy beliefs and their intention to opt for a STEM field career

Despite the widely accepted view that low self-efficacy beliefs negatively influence students' intention to opt for a STEM field oriented study or career path, it remains unclear how to effectively stimulate these beliefs in students who do seem to have the ability and motivation to opt for a STEM career. A suggestion from previous literature is that students' implicit beliefs about the malleability of their learning ability can have a major impact on their self-efficacy beliefs, and, importantly, that these implicit beliefs are malleable themselves. Even though this relation between implicit beliefs, self-efficacy, and STEM field aspirations has been suggested multiple times, there is no empirical evidence to support this claim. The goal of the current study was to examine whether implicit beliefs about the malleability of STEM ability are associated with secondary school students' intention to opt for a STEM field bachelor's degree, using a Structural Equation Modelling approach. Furthermore, we examined the mediating role of STEM-oriented self-efficacy beliefs on the relationship between implicit ability beliefs and STEM intention. We used a Likert-type questionnaire, consisting of subscales to measure ability beliefs, self-efficacy, and intention to opt for a STEM degree of secondary school students in their fifth grade (n = 483). Results showed that there is a positive relation between implicit STEM ability beliefs and the intention to opt for a STEM field bachelor degree, and that this relation is partly mediated by self-efficacy beliefs. Incremental STEM ability beliefs predicted positive self-efficacy beliefs and increased STEM intention. These findings provide a foundation for a novel approach to stimulate and motivate students for the STEM field, namely by stimulating incremental beliefs about their STEM ability.     

Year-Long Peer Mentoring Activity to Enhance the Retention of Freshmen STEM Students in a NSF Scholarship Program

The last year of a National Science Foundation (NSF) funded scholarship program was used to provide pseudo-formal peer mentoring activities to engineering, mathematics, and science undergraduates. A one-credit class was used to afford time for peer mentors and mentees to interact. During the fall semester, seniors augmented each week’s topics with personal experiences as to how they used the skill/topic that they had learned in their freshmen class in a future sophomore, junior or senior level course or on their co-op assignment. The last 10 min of every class were used for the seniors and freshmen to have an informal discussion. During the spring semester, the seniors served as an additional technical resource for the freshmen as they completed their class project. All participants found the one-credit class, project and peer mentoring activities beneficial to their education and would highly recommend the experience to incoming students.     

创艺活动中幼儿自主性培养的探索

通过创艺活动中的环境创设、丰富活动形式、激励自主创艺、注重评价等途径,帮助幼儿搭建与经验、能力之间桥梁,促进幼儿个性化的、富有创造性的艺术表现能力。