Online Technologies in STEM Education

Abstract

STEM education has become the normative base for teaching natural sciences, physical-mathematical disciplines and engineering sciences in a number of coun-tries. This technique has become the basis for a series of reforms for secondary and higher education in the USA, Australia, and some other countries. The meth-od involves the integration of training in the fields of mathematics, technical spe-cialties, scientific research and engineering. The widespread use of this technique and its active research throughout the world over the past ten years is due to the need to improve the quality of technical education and the ever-increasing rate of technological progress. This research is devoted to studying the impact of the STEM education introduction for 3rd year students of technical and pedagogical departments for improving the quality of training. The study involved two groups of students from two universities in Russia and China. The sample consisted of 316 people from each university, and the same amount was for control group to verify the results. The two study groups underwent training using two different STEM methodologies - “amalgam” and “interconnect”, which involve varying degrees of integration of various academic subjects within the coordinated STEM education. Both study groups used online-education integrated with STEM that helped to significantly increase the involvement of students in the learning pro-cess. All three groups passed pre-tests and post-tests on the learning outcomes before and after the introduction of the STEM education. The average grades re-ceived by students on studied disciplines show that the STEM education increas-es the academic performance with the statistical error of the study exceeded. The introduction of the “interconnect” method, which implies a greater integration of subjects during the training, showed provably higher results than the “amalgam” method. However, this study cannot be used to assess the quality and capabilities of each of these methods, since such an assessment requires additional research.

Evolution of New Approaches in Pedagogy and STEM with Inquiry-Based Learning and Post-Pandemic Scenarios

“…This could be a possible rightful direction in collaborative teaching education [8]. One such attempt was made in a joint study between Chinese and Russian universities by Liu et al, who conclude that "the introduction of the "interconnect" method, which implies a greater integration of subjects during the training, showed provably higher results than the "amalgam" method" [9].…”

Issues of Educational Technologies and Authenticity Synergy in a Content and Language Integrated Learning Course at Technical University

“…Teachers admitted that technologies were beneficial and without them it would be impossible to create authentic tasks and assess-ment. Moreover, technologies provide students with more expanded content research that is crucial for solving real-word problems [23].…”

Improving teaching in different disciplines of natural science and mathematics with innovative technologies

“…The introduction of network technologies, cloud services, big data, as well as virtual and augmented reality in teaching practice dramatically increases learning opportunities (Liu et al, 2020). For example, virtual reality (VR) is a technological tool of display that allows users to be placed in a virtual world where situations that would otherwise be difficult to imagine in real life can be created (Hsu, 2021), and augmented reality (AR) provides real-time interaction while combining the virtual and the real worlds (Çetin & Türkan, 2021).…”

“…In our opinion, an effective pedagogical methodology, embedded in the course, is a key to the academic progress of each student. In the current educational practice, STEM learning is gaining popularity and taking root in learning trajectories (Liu et al, 2020). Analyzing the interdisciplinary experience of teaching science and mathematics in higher education focused on research-based learning, 6E learning models, and the use of the innovative learning environment of CreativeLab_Sci & Math created by the Department of Mathematical and Natural Sciences of the Polytechnic Institute of Santarem (Portugal), researchers concluded that student participation in integrative learning contributes to the formation of a less fragmented view of science and mathematics education.…”