The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of students’ information literacy, computer skills, and research competencies for self-regulated learning and problem solving. STEAM education, with interdisciplinary knowledge building and higher-order thinking development as its main purpose, is considered essential for students’ sustainable development in the post-pandemic era. However, STEAM education in China’s K-12 schools is facing several problems, such as insufficient qualified teachers, unsustainable development, and difficulty in achieving meaningful discipline integration. To address these problems, this study proposes an innovative STEAM education model supported by cooperative teaching and theories of project-based learning and collaborative learning. After two iterations of design, evaluation, and revision, the proposed STEAM education model and a set of instructional design principles were validated. The resulting model features a multi-teacher cooperative strategy, detailed and diverse scaffolding, familiar themes for students, the integration of STEAM education into formal curricula, and extended instruction hours. The study results suggest that cooperative teaching can facilitate meaningful discipline integration and can alleviate the STEAM faculty shortage. This study produced five proven instructional design principles for conducting STEAM education supported by cooperative teaching in primary schools.

Gender differences are essential factors influencing collaborative learning at both individual and group levels. However, few studies have systematically investigated their impact on student performance in the innovative context of STEAM education, particularly in the elementary school setting. To address this research need, this study examined the learning behaviors of 91 sixth graders in a STEAM program, who were classified into three gender groupings, namely, boy-only, girl-only, and mixed-gender groups, and further compared their performance in terms of cognition, interaction, and emotion by both gender and gender group type. The results show that, compared to individual gender differences, the gender group type had a greater impact on students’ behavioral performance during STEAM education. While all gender groupings had specific advantages, mixed-gender groups proved to be the most preferable, with benefits such as enhanced higher-order thinking, interaction, and emotional expression. Moreover, the study revealed that both boys and girls acted differently when working with the opposite gender in mixed-gender groups. These research findings have several implications for facilitating STEAM learning in co-ed elementary schools.

A learner profile is a method of classifying learners through their characteristics. Much of the current research on learner profiles has focused on online learning environments; there is a lack of in-depth category profiling and learning behavior analysis of student profiles in the STEAM context. To address this research demand, this study conducted a cluster analysis based on observed higher-order thinking behaviors, leadership behaviors, and verbal and non-verbal interaction behaviors of 81 primary school students in a STEAM project to explore the differences in learning outcomes, learning perception, and social recognition among different types of learners. The results revealed that STEAM students can be divided into three categories: Thinkers, Speakers, and Followers. There are significant differences between Thinkers and Followers in terms of positive emotions. Speakers and Followers have notable differences in their contributions and active participation. The research results can help teachers acquire a deeper understanding of student types in STEAM and thus provide more relevant and personalized instructional facilitation and class management.

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