Assess students' growth in students' STEM career interest, self-efficacy in learning STEM content, and growth in STEM content knowledge.
(d) Assess students' growth in students' STEM career interest, self-efficacy in learning STEM content, and growth in STEM content knowledge. .
For the work presented here, we recognize the abundance of definitions and suggest a theoretical framework for integrated STEM education that grounds itself as, "the approach to teaching the STEM content of two or more STEM domains, bound by STEM practices within an authentic context for the purpose of connecting these subjects to enhance student learning" (Kelley & Knowles, 2016, p. 3).
However, relatively few studies exist that measure the effectiveness of these types of STEM activities in terms of student learning of core STEM content.
Perhaps a greater emphasis on authentic means of teaching and evaluating STEM content that involves collaboration, problem solving, and application of STEM knowledge might serve to engage learners in more meaningful ways, thereby enabling continued motivation and interest in STEM careers as students progress through secondary and post-secondary education.
Building a strategic approach to integrating STEM concepts requires strong conceptual and foundational understanding of how students learn and apply STEM content.
The GK-12 program supports fellowships and training to enable STEM graduate students and advanced undergraduates to serve in K-12 schools as resources in STEM content and applications.
STEM content should not be taught in isolation, but rather in a way that reflects how STEM knowledge is used outside of school; this knowledge is further contextualized or driven by some problem or issue.
Efforts were also being made to increase general awareness of STEM careers and to provide a deeper understanding of STEM content through application and problem-solving activities.
So how about a national effort to get more STEM content majors into K-12 teaching?
Engineering design can provide the ideal STEM content integrator (NAE and NRC 2009; NRC 2012).
