Assessment of Curricular Materials for Integrated STEM Education  (RTP, Strand 4)

Siddika Selcen Guzey; Tamara J Moore

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Conference: 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition
Location: Seattle, Washington
Publication Date: June 14, 2015
Start Date: June 14, 2015
End Date: June 17, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-692-50180-1
ISSN: 2153-5965
Conference Session: Research to Practice: STRAND 4 K-12 Engineering Resources: Best Practices in Curriculum Design (Part 2)
Tagged Division: K-12 & Pre-College Engineering
Page Count: 10
Page Numbers: 26.260.1 - 26.260.10
DOI: 10.18260/p.23599
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/23599
Download Count: 1028

Paper Authors

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Siddika Selcen Guzey Purdue University, West Lafayette

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Dr. Guzey is an assistant professor of biology and biology education at Purdue University. Her research and teaching focus on integrated STEM Education.

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Tamara J Moore Purdue University, West Lafayette orcid.org/0000-0002-7956-4479

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Tamara J. Moore, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the School of Engineering Education and Director of STEM Integration in the INSPIRE Institute at Purdue University. Dr. Moore’s research is centered on the integration of STEM concepts in K-12 and postsecondary classrooms in order to help students make connections among the STEM disciplines and achieve deep understanding. Her work focuses on defining STEM integration and investigating its power for student learning.

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Abstract

Assessment of Curricular Materials for Integrated STEM Education (RTP, Strand 4)Improving K-12 STEM education has a priority on numerous education reforms in the U.S. Tothat end, developing and sustaining quality programs that focus on integrated STEM education iscritical for educators. Integrated STEM education provides authentic contexts for learning andenables students to make connections among the STEM disciplines, as well as supportsdeveloping knowledge and skill within and across the STEM disciplines. Engineering is a criticalelement of integrated STEM education as it can be seen as a vehicle to teach and learn scienceand mathematics. Successful implementation of any integrated STEM program is related to the curriculummaterials used. Educators increasingly recognize the challenge of finding quality curricularmaterials for integrated STEM education. In this study, forty-eight teachers participated in ayear-long professional development program on STEM integration funded by National ScienceFoundation (NSF). Teachers designed curricular units following an iterative design approach.Each STEM curriculum unit includes an engineering challenge in which students use or developtechnologies to solve the challenge and integrates grade level appropriate mathematics (dataanalysis and measurement) and one of the three science content areas: life science, physicalscience, or earth science. The main research question that guided this study was: What is the quality of the STEMcurriculum units developed by the science teachers? We also investigated whether there was anydifference in the level of quality of these STEM curriculum units between different sciencecontent areas (life science, earth science, and physical science). Twenty STEM integration unitsdeveloped by the project teachers were assessed using STEM Integration CurriculumAssessment (STEM-ICA) tool. The descriptive statistics and Kruskal-Wallis test results showedthat teachers developed rich and comprehensive STEM units and no statistically significantdifferences were found in terms of quality between the life science, physical science, and earthscience focused STEM units. However, the results showed that the context of the engineeringactivities in physical science focused STEM units were more engaging and motivatingcomparing to the authentic contexts used in life science and earth science focused STEM units. In this presentation, we will present the study results and provide detailed informationabout the project. We will also share sample curricular materials developed by the teachers andthe STEM-ICA used to evaluate the quality of the curricular materials. The instrument can beused as a research tool and as a guide to develop effective STEM curricular materials.

Citation
Format

Guzey, S. S., & Moore, T. J. (2015, June), Assessment of Curricular Materials for Integrated STEM Education (RTP, Strand 4) Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.23599

TY - CPAPER
AB - Assessment of Curricular Materials for Integrated STEM Education (RTP, Strand 4)Improving K-12 STEM education has a priority on numerous education reforms in the U.S. Tothat end, developing and sustaining quality programs that focus on integrated STEM education iscritical for educators. Integrated STEM education provides authentic contexts for learning andenables students to make connections among the STEM disciplines, as well as supportsdeveloping knowledge and skill within and across the STEM disciplines. Engineering is a criticalelement of integrated STEM education as it can be seen as a vehicle to teach and learn scienceand mathematics. Successful implementation of any integrated STEM program is related to the curriculummaterials used. Educators increasingly recognize the challenge of finding quality curricularmaterials for integrated STEM education. In this study, forty-eight teachers participated in ayear-long professional development program on STEM integration funded by National ScienceFoundation (NSF). Teachers designed curricular units following an iterative design approach.Each STEM curriculum unit includes an engineering challenge in which students use or developtechnologies to solve the challenge and integrates grade level appropriate mathematics (dataanalysis and measurement) and one of the three science content areas: life science, physicalscience, or earth science. The main research question that guided this study was: What is the quality of the STEMcurriculum units developed by the science teachers? We also investigated whether there was anydifference in the level of quality of these STEM curriculum units between different sciencecontent areas (life science, earth science, and physical science). Twenty STEM integration unitsdeveloped by the project teachers were assessed using STEM Integration CurriculumAssessment (STEM-ICA) tool. The descriptive statistics and Kruskal-Wallis test results showedthat teachers developed rich and comprehensive STEM units and no statistically significantdifferences were found in terms of quality between the life science, physical science, and earthscience focused STEM units. However, the results showed that the context of the engineeringactivities in physical science focused STEM units were more engaging and motivatingcomparing to the authentic contexts used in life science and earth science focused STEM units. In this presentation, we will present the study results and provide detailed informationabout the project. We will also share sample curricular materials developed by the teachers andthe STEM-ICA used to evaluate the quality of the curricular materials. The instrument can beused as a research tool and as a guide to develop effective STEM curricular materials.
AU - Siddika Selcen Guzey
AU - Tamara J Moore
CY - Seattle, Washington
DA - 2015/06/14
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Assessment of Curricular Materials for Integrated STEM Education (RTP, Strand 4)
UR - https://peer.asee.org/23599
DO - 10.18260/p.23599
ER -