Investigating the Preservice Primary School, Mathematics and Science Teachers’ STEM Awareness

Abstract

Today's life requires individuals to be prepared for complex world environment, to make complex decisions, and to have critical thinking skills related to everyday life issues at hand. STEM education is thought to be the glorious solution to thrive in a global knowledge driven world. Teachers are key elements for successful STEM education. Present study aims to investigate the preservice primary school, mathematics and science teachers STEM awareness. Quantitative research methodology guided the present study. Cross-sectional survey type which collects information from a sample that has been selected from a predetermined population was used. Stem Awareness Scale, a five point Likert type instrument developed by Buyruk and Korkmaz (2016), was used to measure preservice teachers STEM awareness. Data was collected from 558 (371 female, 187 male) preservice teachers enrolled in three different teacher preparation programs. The results of this research demonstrates that there is no significant interaction effect for gender and department variables however there is significant difference among different department students STEM awareness preservice science teachers' and preservice primary school teachers STEM awareness scores have similar mean values and also outnumbers the preservice mathematics teachers' STEM awareness.

Okul Öncesi Öğretmen Adaylarının FeTeMM Farkındalıklarının Değerlendirilmesi

“…Consistent with previous studies conducted with teachers and teacher candidates (Bakırcı & Karışan, 2018;Buyruk & Korkmaz, 2016;Cevik et al, 2017), in the current study, gender did not have any effect on STEM awareness. However, unlike the related literature, a significant difference was found in the dimension of STEM's 'effect on lessons' in favor of male students.…”

Determination of Science Teachers’ views on STEM Approach

“…Çağdaş öğrenme-öğretme kuramlarının ışığında geliştirilen güncellenmiş bu öğretim programında Fen-Teknoloji-Matematik-Mühendislik (FeTeMM) yaklaşımına yer verilmiştir. Bu yaklaşımın son dönemlerde birçok ülkenin öğretim programında yer almasıyla birlikte, bu konuda birçok çalışma yapılmıştır (Bakırcı & Karışan, 2018;Pekbay, 2017).…”

Öğretmen Adaylarının FeTeMM Öğretim Yönelimlerinin Anabilim Dalına ve Sınıf Düzeyine Göre İncelenmesi

“…Students will obtain information directly through primary resources thanks to the integration of real life problems into classroom environment which enhances their critical thinking skills (Carvalho, Fíuza, Conboy, Fonseca, Santos, Gama & Salema, 2015). STEM education attracts many educators in national (Bakırcı & Karışan, 2018;Çorlu, Capraro & Capraro, 2014;Pekbay, 2017;Zengin, 2016) and international fields (Brown, 2012;Rinke, Gladstone-Brown, Kinlaw & Cappiello, 2016;Roehrig, Moore, Wang & Park, 2012) because of its significant contributions to students' analyzing, and solving real life problems and understanding the background of the current innovations. STEM education is an interdisciplinary approach that aims to teach science, technology, engineering and mathematics in an integrated way (Bybee, 2010;Çorlu, Capraro & Capraro, 2014;Güder & Gürbüz, 2018).…”

“…STEM education is an interdisciplinary approach that aims to teach science, technology, engineering and mathematics in an integrated way (Bybee, 2010;Çorlu, Capraro & Capraro, 2014;Güder & Gürbüz, 2018). The Ministry of National Education [MoNE] in Turkey has stated that STEM education is an interdisciplinary approach that should be include from the kindergarten (Ata-Aktürk, Demircan, Şenyurt, Çetin, 2017) to the university (Bakırcı & Karışan, 2018). Likewise, in the STEM report, it is pointed that STEM education is a priority in order to increase the academic achievement of the students that international examinations such as PISA and TIMSS.…”

“…Science, mathematics, and primary school teachers are teachers who work at basic levels of education. It is believed that preservice teachers who are equipped with qualified STEM education will make effective teaching in this regard when they became a teacher (Bakırcı & Karışan, 2018). An effective STEM education will lead to increase knowledge, motivation and interest of students about these disciplines (Bozkurt-Altan et.…”