Prepared for the Future? What a Literature Review Reveals About K–12 STEM Professional Development Programs

Abstract

These initiatives require that K-12 teachers advance their knowledge in ways that demonstrate the connections between STEM disciplines and in ways that can help their students connect STEM to their daily lives. PD programs will be essential in supporting K-12 teachers in their use of integrated STEM content that is found in our world.Unfortunately, there are few evidence-based roadmaps for creating and studying wellconceptualized STEM PD programs. Honey, Pearson, and Schweingruber (2014) recently concluded that there is a need to articulate how the STEM areas are integrated, how important outcomes associated with an integrated program are studied, and how to configure STEM PD programs. They specifically reported that "many well-meaning efforts to develop STEM integrated programs are unclear about goals or do not collect outcome data (p. 150)." In addition, they conclude that those who are responsible for designing educational initiatives need to be purposeful in their integration of STEM. Clearly, there is a need to offer more direction to those who work with and study STEM teacher learning.This review of research was conducted with the goal of assisting those who design, implement, and study STEM PD programs. It focuses on understanding how current STEM PD programs are configured and how the different STEM PD programs support the development of the knowledge and practices of teachers. One part of the review focuses on the structure of STEM PD programs. The second part of the review looks closely at how transfer occurs within the different STEM programs, which impacts the knowledge and practice of the participating teachers. This review extends single discipline reviews by examining how STEM PD programs are constructed, providing insights into the design of evidence-based programs that impact teacher learning and practice, and suggesting directions for future research.

A Escola de Aprender: Contributos para a sua construção - Volume II

“…Otros estudios también han constatado las dificultades del profesorado para implementar iSTEM en el aula (e.g., Margot & Kettler, 2019;Toma & Greca, 2018). Asimismo, Luft et al (2019) hallaron que un enfoque basado en la integración de las áreas STEM recibe aún muy poca atención en los programas de desarrollo profesional del profesorado de ciencia. Y, en aquellos casos en los que se ha experimentado, se encuentra que: (1) cuando se forma a profesorado de ciencia en educación STEM, con especial énfasis en la ingeniería, a estos le cuesta integrar la tecnología en sus diseños didácticos (Ring-Whalen et al, 2018); pero (2) al formar a profesorado de tecnología en educación STEM (la mayoría de ellos con formación en ingeniería), la disciplina que ven más difícil de integrar es la ingeniería (Ortega-Torres, 2022).…”