Integration of engineering design in early education: How to achieve it

Abstract

Young boys and girls make houses and beds from cloths and cartons for their dolls, erect shelters and fences for toy animals, build ramps and garages from blocks for toy cars, and lift objects using a rope and reel for having fun. Thanks to their experiences with such design-based games, children combine science with engineering and try to understand and explain the facts and happenings around them with their own information and explanations. In recent years, the literature heavily provided marked evidence that integration of engineering design into science and maths curricula from preschool up to the end of senior high school offers various learning opportunities. Despite bearing potentials for achieving objectives of preschool education, curriculum integration poses the question of ‘How to achieve the integration’ to preschool teachers. In this research, engineering design methods were introduced to a number of preschool teachers so that they could build a learning environment on engineering design in their classes and then an account of implementation of such an activity as a part of preschool education.
 Keywords: Engineering design, pre-school period, STEM education.

Integrating and navigating STEAM (inSTEAM) in early childhood education: An integrative review and inSTEAM conceptual framework

“…Dilek et al (2020) indicated that reading and engaging with picture storybooks promoted interest in STEAM topics and modelling and reinforced appropriate vocabulary usage. Cinar (2019) concludes that young children without writing and reading capabilities benefit from this form of narrative-based and visual introduction.…”

“…12 papers aimed to provide a definition towards understanding integrating STEAM in ECE. Cinar (2019), Hassan et al (2019), Lin et al (2021), andTank et al (2018) had a STEAM definition that has the integration notion embedded. Interestingly, Smith and Cline (2016) focused on defining STEAM integration while Aldemir and Kermani (2017), Kermani and Aldemir (2015), and Lowrie and Larkin (2020) define integrating STEAM from an ICT focus that positions ICT as a tool to explore STEAM at different integration levels.…”

“…This study apexed role of teachers' STEAM awareness, willingness, & presence of technological tools for integration. Out of the 17 studies, ten reported children to be at the center of STEAM education (Aldemir & Kermani, 2017;Cinar, 2019;Hassan et al, 2019;Kermani & Aldemir, 2015;Kewalramani et al, 2020;Lin et al, 2021;Lowrie & Larkin, 2020;Tank et al, 2018;Tippett & Milford, 2017;Weng & Li, 2020). Despite the established definition of children at the heart of STEAM learning, articles do not report learning initiated based on the child's interest.…”

“…Even though STEAM education is highly relevant to real life, Cinar (2019) suggested that teachers present the learning outcomes based on the existing curriculum to explore real-life problems to achieve meaningful learning and desirable learning outcomes consecutively. Dilek et al (2020) and Kewalramani et al (2020) also reported that children tend to observe and attempt to link real-life understanding situations and scientific concepts in a STEAM play-based inquiry exploration.…”

“…For children to make meaningful connections with the learning contents, Chen and Chen (2021) and Sullivan and Bers (2018) emphasized the importance of providing relatable activities and learning experiences that incorporate STEAM subjects. Cinar (2019) added that the nature of STEAM education's teaching and learning process is through hands-on approaches. Several studies, including Aldemir and Kermani (2017), Kermani and Aldemir (2015), and Smith and Cline (2016), supported the notion of providing a wide range of meaningful hands-on learning through play.…”