Engineering process as a focus: STEM professional development with elementary STEM‐focused professional development schools

Nesmith, Suzanne M.; Cooper, Sandi

doi:10.1111/ssm.12376

Cited by 16 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…We consider this fact in our program to face the known discomfort feeling of early childhood educators when teaching science (Monkevincene et al, 2020) by including history of women in science and highlighting the role of arts in the construction of scientific practices. This perhaps helped the teachers to familiarize with the STEAM approach and overcome the unwillingness found by other authors (Nesmith & Cooper, 2019;Sharapan, 2012). Moreover, most of the teachers in this study embodied positive role models of women in STEAM areas, which was one of the program objectives.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Notwithstanding teachers' general positive beliefs and attitudes towards STEAM for young learners when they get to know integrated learning experiences, certain hesitation to implement activities in the classroom may be apparent due to lack of teachers' STEM content knowledge, feeling unprepared to teach, or uncomfortable to address concepts in these integrated science-related fields (Nesmith & Cooper, 2019;Sharapan, 2012). Some other barriers that educators often encounter are poor parental and school support, lack of technological resources, difficulties to use STEAM approach in a practical way with children (Ogegbo, & Aina, 2020), or insufficient experiences with the elements of the engineering process for young learners (Nesmith & Cooper, 2019).…”

Section: Dealing With Stem Gender Stereotypesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Teachers who have participated in STEM or STEAM professional learning experiences, gain confidence and perceive themselves to become more efficient in implementing these kinds of strategies in early childhood education (Nesmith & Cooper, 2019). Further, teachers' understanding of the advantages of incorporating these disciplines in early education is increased when they combine arts with STEM disciplines (Lawson et al, 2018).…”

Section: Dealing With Stem Gender Stereotypesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Promoting STEAM learning in the early years: “Pequeños Científicos” Program

Cabello¹,

Martínez²,

Armijo³

et al. 2021

LUMAT

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Education in the early years is an excellent space for promoting integrated learning. The STEAM education model combines Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics holistically and has gained force globally, mostly in developed countries. However, in developing countries of Latin America, STEAM education programs are incipient and still unfamiliar to many early childhood and primary school educators. "Pequeños Científicos" is a pioneer educational program in Chile aimed at providing extracurricular academic enrichment to students 3 to 10 years old, with a gender-empowering approach. With a cross-sectional design and integrating data from students, researchers and educators, this article documents program design and implementation issues based on a partial application of SWOT analysis grounded on strengths, weaknesses and opportunities. The strengths were the strongest elements that might be transferred to similar interventions, for instance, students were positively engaged in the learning processes and actively communicating their advances through diverse artistic formats. The weaknesses were mainly difficulties that can be avoided in future replication, such as teachers' management of children's behavior. Opportunities present alternatives to these types of programs to improve and grow; for example, through articulation of the courses and including children with additional needs. We call for tackling the weaknesses for more efficient application and discuss the promotion of STEAM learning in the early years in the contexts of high educational inequality for future replication in diverse contexts.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Dealing With Stem Gender Stereotypesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Dealing With Stem Gender Stereotypesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Promoting STEAM learning in the early years: “Pequeños Científicos” Program

Cabello¹,

Martínez²,

Armijo³

et al. 2021

LUMAT

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The processes of teaching and learning through the STEM teaching method require an adequate development of teaching professionals [39][40][41], where years of experience, level of education and subject matter expertise have a direct influence on whether the teaching method is applied with assurance, as well as increased involvement of families who support STEM learning at home [42,43].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scientific Performance and Mapping of the Term STEM in Education on the Web of Science

Lucena

Dúo-Terrón²,

Navas-Parejo

et al. 2020

Sustainability

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Technological progress is causing terms such as "STEM", an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, to burst into the educational arena, marking a new era in the application of innovative and motivating teaching and learning processes. The objective of this research is to analyze the trajectory and the transcendence of the "STEM" concept in the educational field, having as reference the reported literature of Web of Science. The methodology applied in this research is based on bibliometrics, analyzing both the performance and the structural and dynamic development of the concept through a co-word analysis. The total number of documents analyzed is 4390. The results show that the scientific community mainly uses English and research papers to present their results. From 2015 onwards, the main lines of research are beginning to be established, which focus on "women" and "science". It can be concluded that the term "STEM" in education is beginning to have a greater incidence and impact on the processes of teaching and learning, especially in the field of science, although there are currently discrepancies between men and women in its use.

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“…In addition to preparing PST for teaching engineering lessons in the elementary classroom, consideration must also be given to the preparation of classroom teachers for mentorship of the PST. The researchers previously conducted a STEM PD with a focus on engineering that yielded positive results specific to engineering teaching efficacy and engineering implementation (Nesmith & Cooper, 2019), yet the PD experience must be revised and relaunched to assure that all classroom mentor teachers possess the engineering knowledge, skills, and efficacy necessary to fully support PST in their classrooms. Implementation of the preservice teacher engineering unit and the inservice teacher engineering PD would provide research opportunities to examine the impacts of the experiences on those involved.…”

Section: Limitations and Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Connecting engineering design and inquiry cycles: Impact on elementary preservice teachers' engineering efficacy and perspectives toward teaching engineering

Nesmith

Cooper

2021

School Sci & Mathematics

Self Cite

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Engineering has become increasingly prominent in science education, with documents such as Next Generation Science Standards detailing the importance of introducing students at all grade levels to science and engineering practices. Yet, many elementary teachers may lack sufficient engineering content and pedagogical knowledge and report feeling unprepared to teach engineering content and processes. To prepare future elementary teachers to teach engineering, two university faculty members in science and mathematics education designed an engineering unit that was incorporated within an elementary science methods course and supported through an elementary mathematics methods course. This unit focused on the engineering design process as well as connections between the work of scientists and engineers; the processes of science, engineering, and mathematics; and the cycles of engineering design and inquiry. The results of the study provide evidence that the unit had a positive influence on the 27 preservice teacher participants’ engineering teaching efficacy, understanding of engineering, and comprehension of the implementation of engineering in the elementary classroom.

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Engineering process as a focus: STEM professional development with elementary STEM‐focused professional development schools

Cited by 16 publications

References 19 publications

Promoting STEAM learning in the early years: “Pequeños Científicos” Program

Promoting STEAM learning in the early years: “Pequeños Científicos” Program

Scientific Performance and Mapping of the Term STEM in Education on the Web of Science

Connecting engineering design and inquiry cycles: Impact on elementary preservice teachers' engineering efficacy and perspectives toward teaching engineering

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