STEM education reform plays a critical role in modern education for the country to keep abreast of being competitive in global economy. For a long time, STEM disciplines have been in silos, rendering the students unable to connect learned knowledge with real life problems. The emergence of integrated STEM education in some institutions suggests that, this approach makes students better problem solvers and logical thinkers. This paper provided an overview of what teaching strategies dominate in the implementation of integrated STEM education. The research methodology was based on a review of relevant literature search strategy through ERIC, online databases and journals such as Science Direct, Wiley Online Library, Taylor & Francis Online, SpringerLink, IEEE Xplore Digital Library, JSTOR and Journal of STEM Education. The keywords used in the search included integration strategies, science and technology, teaching and learning STEM, STEM in primary school, STEM in secondary school and STEM in higher education. The results of this meta-analysis revealed that, a project-based learning approach is the dominant strategy in STEM education implementation as this method improves the students' skills and their capability to compete with others in the highly knowledge-based society. Findings from this review will lead educators who are new to STEM education to investigate further on how project-based learning could be effectively implemented in their teaching.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the issues and challenges faced by headteachers in practicing the suggested distributed leadership (DL) approach in three primary schools to their middle layer leaders.
Design/methodology/approach
– The study employed a case study design and data were collected through semi-structured interviews. A total of three headteachers were interviewed in examining and exploring challenges within the DL practices. The transcripts from the semi-structured interviews formed the basis of the findings.
Findings
– The findings suggest that senior teachers lack confidence in making decisions and rely on the consent from headteachers even though they are empowered to make their own decisions. Another significant issue faced by headteachers when distributing their leadership is the ability, expertise, experience, and willingness of teachers to hold leadership roles and responsibilities.
Originality/value
– The results are important since there have been few empirical studies on the issues and challenges faced by headteachers in practising DL approach in primary schools in the context of Malaysia. This initiative sidelines the traditional school leadership approach which emphasises on the accountability of headteachers as the sole school leader.
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