Development and Students' Perceptions after Application of a Subject Substitute STEAM Program - Focusing on Energy Unit in 6th Grade Curriculum -

Abstract

In recent years, Korea encourages teachers to do STEAM education(Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts & Mathematics), which includes Arts to STEM education to train creative science technology talent. Related to this, we developed a subject substitute STEAM program for the 6th grade students in elementary school and applied it in a field. The STEAM program which substitutes contents in curriculum related to Energy unit was developed and it was taught to twenty four sixth grade students during regular classes. During the classes, all activities of students were observed and they were written in recording notes during the observation. After all STEAM program ended, how students recognize the subject substitute STEAM program compared to general class, understand learning contents and think about the program before and after the STEAM classes were analyzed through questionnaire and interviews. The results were as follows. First, some students had difficulty in reconciling different ideas in group, creative thinking and crafts but most students liked the STEAM classes because many activities are fun and it is easy to understand. Second, learners regarded practical use of knowledge, learning different subjects together and interests as the reasons they can understand learning contents easily during STEAM program. Third, learners recognized STEAM classes are good to understand knowledge, think creative ideas and improve social skills after the STEAM classes while they showed anticipation, worry and fear before taking the classes. It is found that a subjective substitute STEAM program is helpful to increase learners' interests in learning, understand learning contents, increase creativity and have a good personality through a qualitative research.

A review of the effect of integrated STEM or STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) education in South Korea

“…However, there is little research on how students perceive STEAM lessons in comparison with regular ones. Annual survey reports on student perceptions of STEAM programs commissioned by KOFAC and two research papers provided an overall picture of how students experienced STEAM in schools (Kang et al, 2017Lee, Chung Lee, Shin, Chung, & Oh, 2013;Lim et al, 2014. A report examining the long-term effects of STEAM as perceived by students also exists (Kang, Im, et al, 2018).…”

“…More than half of all students, both elementary and secondary, selected either the integration of subjects or group work as the most distinctive feature of STEAM classes, also nominating either of the two as their favorite feature of STEAM classes. Students' perceptions were presented in their own words by Lim et al (2014). The study analyzed interviews with 24 6th grade students about their perceptions of STEAM after 12 class periods of a STEAM unit on energy.…”