In this research, the effects of STEM (Science-Technology-Mathematics-Engineering) activities on academic achievement of prospective teachers were researched, their opinions on STEM activities were sought. The research was based on a semi-experimental model with pre-test and post-test control group. During the application phase, the topic of Work-Energy subject was taught through STEM based 5E model in the experimental group, while in the control group, the lessons were conducted using traditional teacher centred teaching. The research group is comprised of second-year students in Elementary Mathematics Education taking Physics I course at the Dokuz Eylul University in Turkey. A statistically significant difference was found in favour of the experimental group in terms of prospective teachers’ academic achievement. In addition, the positive opinions of the prospective teachers from the experimental group on STEM activities were that STEM activities included encouraging group work, assisting students to produce original work, enabling them to do research, and ensuring that the information learned is permanent. The negative opinions of them on STEM activities were insufficient time for the application, the dominance of some students during the group work, and difficulties with noise levels in class.
Keywords: academic achievement, prospective teachers’ opinions, STEM activities, work-energy.
In this article, the use of fidget spinners, which have recently become popular with students, is recommended to increase student motivation for the learning of certain topics in physics and their understanding of them, namely: friction, moment of inertia, torque and conservation of angular momentum.
Equations, as mathematical models—used to explain facts—are simplified, especially when learning physics at a basic level, to help in the understanding of complex systems that depend on many variables. These simplifications are idealizations in the literature, where abstractions and approximations are also given for the same concept. When reading about a model, knowing that it is idealized, and realizing what the idealizations are, is very important in enabling the reader to understand complex operations correctly. The purpose of this study is to reveal whether or not students are aware of the idealizations used in some mathematical models to explain complex facts in physics education. This study is organized as a simple survey model. The data for the study were collected from a test consisting of 14 open-ended questions within a basic physics context. The test was given to 60 pre-service teachers studying physics and science education. The questions were prepared considering the idealizations in some mathematical models that are frequently used in physics lessons. The results of the study are given along with content analysis and frequency tables of the open-ended questions, with the help of rubrics developed by the researchers. The data obtained showed that the majority of the prospective teachers participating in the study were not aware of the idealizations in the equations, and those using the idealizations generally used irrelevant and incorrect idealizations.
In this research, the effects of STEM (Science-Technology-Mathematics-Engineering) activities on academic achievement of prospective teachers were researched, their opinions on STEM activities were sought. The research was based on a semi-experimental model with pre-test and post-test control group. During the application phase, the topic of Work-Energy subject was taught through STEM based 5E model in the experimental group, while in the control group, the lessons were conducted using traditional teacher centred teaching. The research group is comprised of second-year students in Elementary Mathematics Education taking Physics I course at the Dokuz Eylul University in Turkey. A statistically significant difference was found in favour of the experimental group in terms of prospective teachers’ academic achievement. In addition, the positive opinions of the prospective teachers from the experimental group on STEM activities were that STEM activities included encouraging group work, assisting students to produce original work, enabling them to do research, and ensuring that the information learned is permanent. The negative opinions of them on STEM activities were insufficient time for the application, the dominance of some students during the group work, and difficulties with noise levels in class.
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