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Reform efforts in different parts of the world call for the adoption of integrated approaches to STEM education. However, little is known about how teachers work, as members of learning communities, to design STEM teaching material such as lesson plans. To address this gap in the literature, we examined the design of STEM lesson plans by in-service secondary teachers (n = 26) from all S-T-E-M disciplinary backgrounds who participated as members of a learning community in the context of a 7-month professional development program comprised of 13 small-group sessions. STEM lesson plans were analysed based on the key characteristics of a conceptual framework of integrated STEM, and the teachers’ identified interdisciplinary elements were analysed through the boundary objects framework. The qualitative content analysis produced four main findings: (a) divergencies take place at the disciplinary level when teachers design STEM lesson plans; (b) teachers coming from different disciplines have different positioning regarding specific integrated STEM key characteristics; (c) the type and sequence of instructional activities served as a boundary-design practice; (d) the nature of the boundary objects that teachers identify in order to teach integrated STEM differs according to the discipline. The findings of the study shed light on teachers’ understanding and needs at the disciplinary level and call for specially designed STEM professional development programmes that provide explicit opportunities for disciplinary boundary crossings.
Reform efforts in different parts of the world call for the adoption of integrated approaches to STEM education. However, little is known about how teachers work, as members of learning communities, to design STEM teaching material such as lesson plans. To address this gap in the literature, we examined the design of STEM lesson plans by in-service secondary teachers (n = 26) from all S-T-E-M disciplinary backgrounds who participated as members of a learning community in the context of a 7-month professional development program comprised of 13 small-group sessions. STEM lesson plans were analysed based on the key characteristics of a conceptual framework of integrated STEM, and the teachers’ identified interdisciplinary elements were analysed through the boundary objects framework. The qualitative content analysis produced four main findings: (a) divergencies take place at the disciplinary level when teachers design STEM lesson plans; (b) teachers coming from different disciplines have different positioning regarding specific integrated STEM key characteristics; (c) the type and sequence of instructional activities served as a boundary-design practice; (d) the nature of the boundary objects that teachers identify in order to teach integrated STEM differs according to the discipline. The findings of the study shed light on teachers’ understanding and needs at the disciplinary level and call for specially designed STEM professional development programmes that provide explicit opportunities for disciplinary boundary crossings.
Over the last 40 years, exploring the possible interrelations between the history of mathematics and mathematics education has gradually emerged as an interdisciplinary domain of educational research and practice, and entered a maturity stage during the last two decades. This development calls for an account of the general issues concerning the rationale and main themes underlying research and applications in its context, and the foundational issues addressed as a result of its interdisciplinary character. Therefore, after explaining the perspective characterizing work in this domain (what has been called the HPM perspective), we present the main themes along which current research is conducted and we analyze the main issues and concerns raised by current research in this domain, with due reference to recent publications. Papers in this issue further develop the key research strands shaped by these main issues and concerns from a variety of perspectives; in particular, papers address the theoretical points related to the interdisciplinary character of this domain (e.g., the role of history in promoting and developing STEM education more profoundly), and the design of innovative teaching approaches based on original sources (e.g., how non-didacticized resource material can motivate mathematically rich tasks without requiring too specialized knowledge in the history of mathematics). These papers also suggest fresh avenues for research, some bearing on potential methodological connections between mathematics, education, and history (e.g., the possibility of different readings of original sources that reveal the complex interrelations among historical knowledge, teaching objectives, and pedagogical practices), and some bearing on the implementation, evaluation, and dissemination of designs connected to the history of mathematics, in teaching at all levels of education (e.g., development of curricular material based on original texts, offering new learning opportunities in relation to core topics in university mathematics). We conclude with a brief description of each contributed paper.
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