Understanding teachers’ conceptions surrounding integrated STEM education is vital to the successful implementation of integrated STEM curricula in K-12 classrooms. Of particular interest is understanding how teachers conceptualize the role of the STEM disciplines within their integrated STEM teaching. Further, despite knowing that content-agnostic characteristics of integrated STEM education are important, little is known about how teachers conceptualize the real-world problems, 21st century skills, and the promotion of STEM careers in their integrated STEM instruction. This study used an exploratory case study design to investigate conceptions of 19 K-12 science teachers after participating in an integrated STEM-focused professional development and implementing integrated STEM lessons into their classrooms. Our findings show that all teacher participants viewed STEM education from an integrative perspective that fosters the development of 21st century skills, using real-world problems to motivate students. Our findings also reveal that teachers have varying ideas related to the STEM disciplines within integrated STEM instruction, which could assist teacher educators in preparing high-quality professional development experiences. Findings related to real-world problems, 21st century skills, and STEM careers provide a window into how to best support teachers to include these characteristics into their teaching more explicitly.
Current policy documents across the world call for changes in K-12 science teaching to use integrated STEM strategies to provide a more authentic learning environment for students. Though the importance of integrated STEM education is established through national and international policy documents, there remains disagreement on focus, models, and effective approaches for integrated STEM instruction. A primary focus of STEM policies is addressing STEM workforce issues. However, other important foci for global STEM initiatives are more equitable education, poverty reduction, and increased STEM literacy and awareness. This chapter critiques current implementations of STEM as focused only on technical aspects of engineering design which will not meet any of the goals of integrated STEM. Rather, the authors propose that integration of SSI into STEM lessons will promote the social thinking necessary in engineering design and enhance work toward achieving not only STEM workforce preparation, but also increased STEM literacy and equity within STEM.
Integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is becoming increasingly common in K-12 classrooms, and small group activities are ubiquitous to STEM instruction. This article includes both theoretical and practical descriptions of a microethnographic approach to critical multimodal discourse analysis that we used to explore power and positioning within a mixed-gender group of students working together on an engineering design challenge. We drew upon social semiotics, positioning theory, and activity theory to ground this work and utilized three phases of data analysis: microethnography to develop individual and group storylines, critical multimodal discourse analysis of key events, and the integration of storylines and discourse analysis. This multi-phase approach granted us insights into our data that would have otherwise been lacking. Microethnography revealed the significance of the shift between science and engineering activities in relation to power and positioning within the group. Multimodal analysis revealed that the introduction of new physical artifacts influenced power and positioning within the small group, with different modes of communication having different intensities across the unit. We argue that our approach is useful in analyzing complex small group interactions within science classrooms and highlight key methodological decisions for researchers interested in employing a microethnographic approach to critical multimodal discourse analysis.
Background Recent policies have given momentum to the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in the USA and throughout the world. This has resulted in rapid growth in engineering and STEM curricula, many of which incorporate global contexts to frame student experiences; however, little research has been done on the effects of this contextualization. Thus, it is critical to explore the impact of these curricula on student learning and the development of STEM identities, especially those who have historically been marginalized in STEM fields. The purposes of this study are to critically examine how STEM curriculum helps shape students’ perceptions of the underlying cultural context and suggest ways that anti-oppressive education theory can be applied in middle school physical science classrooms. This study draws on classroom observational data and the curriculum text itself to understand how students perceive culture that they do not identify with. Results We found that the curriculum provides very limited perspectives of the non-dominant culture in which the learning was situated. Our results also indicate three emerging themes showing students to be demonstrating an elitist viewpoint, having a narrow view of another culture, or being indifferent toward the embedded cultural context in the lessons. As a class, deficit-based views of the people and places presented in the lesson were created rather than the desired culturally competent views. These negative perceptions were imprinted and solidified through limited portrayal of the embedded culture in the curriculum. Conclusions This work highlights the importance of curriculum context in students’ learning. Beliefs about the people and places are created through global context presented in the curriculum. Portrayal of these people and places was not representative of the culture; thus, resulting in limited perceptions of the situated contexts. It is crucial that the teachers critically evaluate the curriculum prior to its implementation to make sure Others are represented appropriately by drawing upon the anti-oppressive education theory. Lastly, we also advocate for the incorporation of global culture in STEM curriculum by having students learn beyond what the written curriculum offers.
In this work, silica nanofibers (SNFs) were prepared by an electrospinning method and modified with poly- d -lysine (PDL) or (3-aminopropyl) trimethoxysilane (APTS) making biocompatible and degradable substrates for neuronal growth. The as-prepared SNF, modified SNF-PDL, and SNF-APTS were evaluated using scanning electron microscopy, nitrogen adsorption/desorption isotherms, contact angle measurements, and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy. Herein, the scanning electron microscopic images revealed that dissolution occurred in a corrosion-like manner by enlarging porous structures, which led to loss of structural integrity. In addition, covalently modified SNF-APTS with more hydrophobic surfaces and smaller surface areas resulted in significantly slower dissolution compared to SNF and physically modified SNF-PDL, revealing that different surface modifications can be used to tune the dissolution rate. Growth of primary hippocampal neuron on all substrates led to a slower dissolution rate. The three-dimensional SNF with larger surface area and higher surface density of the amino group promoted better cell attachment and resulted in an increased neurite density. This is the first known work addressing the degradability of SNF substrate in physiological conditions with neuron growth in vitro, suggesting a strong potential for the applications of the material in controlled drug release.
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