STEM Education: An Emerging Field of Inquiry

250 Pages·2018·3.018 MB·English

by  Tasos Barkatsas

STEM Education
Global Education in the 21st
Century Series
Series Editor
Tasos Barkatsas (RMIT University, Australia)
Editorial Board
Amanda Berry (RMIT University, Australia)
Adam Bertram (RMIT University, Australia)
Anthony Clarke (University of British Columbia, Canada)
Yuksel Dede (Gazi University, Turkey)
Heather Fehring (RMIT University, Australia)
Kathy Jordan (RMIT University, Australia)
Peter Kelly (RMIT University, Australia)
Huk Yuen Law (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Juanjo Mena (University of Salamanca, Spain)
Peter Rushbrook (RMIT University, Australia)
Wee Tiong Seah (University of Melbourne, Australia)
Geoff Shacklock (RMIT University, Australia)
Dianne Siemon (RMIT University, Australia)
Robert Strathdee (RMIT University, Australia)
Ngai Ying Wong (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Qiaoping Zhang (The Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Volume 2
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/gecs
STEM Education
An Emerging Field of Inquiry
Edited by
Tasos Barkatsas, Nicky Carr and Grant Cooper
leiden | boston
All chapters in this book have undergone peer review.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.
issn 2542-9728
isbn 978-90-04-39138-3 (paperback)
isbn 978-90-04-39140-6 (hardback)
isbn 978-90-04-39141-3 (e-book)
Copyright 2019 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi,
Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without prior written permission from the publisher.
Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided
that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite
910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change.
This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.
Contents
Acknowledgements vii
List of Figures and Tables viii
Notes on Contributors x
Introduction: STEM Education: An Emerging Field of Inquiry 1
Tasos Barkatsas, Nicky Carr and Grant Cooper
1 What Is in an Acronym? Experiencing STEM Education in Australia 9
Sharon Fraser, Jennifer Earle and Noleine Fitzallen
2 Delivering STEM Education through School-Industry
Partnerships: A Focus on Research and Design 31
Jan H. van Driel, Tessa E. Vossen, Ineke Henze and Marc J. de Vries
3 Reading STEM as Discourse 45
Kathy Jordan
4 Implementing Virtual Reality in the Classroom: Envisaging
Possibilities in Stem Education 61
Grant Cooper and Li Ping Thong
5 Multiplicative Thinking: A Necessary Stem Foundation 74
Dianne Siemon, Natalie Banks, and Shalveena Prasad
6 Possibilities and Potential with Young Learners: Making a
Case for Steam Education 101
Andrew Gilbert and Lisa Borgerding
7 Inquiry-Based Learning in Statistics: When Students
Engage with Challenging Problems in STEM Disciplines 117
Theodosia Prodromou and Zsolt Lavicza
8 Values in Stem Education: Investigating Macau Secondary Students’
Valuing in Mathematics Learning 132
Chunlian Jiang, Wee Tiong Seah, Tasos Barkatsas,
Sylvia Sao Leng Ieong and Io Keong Cheong
vi contents
9 Perspectives on STEM Education in Preservice Primary Teacher
Education 155
Wendy Nielsen, Helen Georgiou, Sarah Howard and Tricia Forrester
10 Primary Pre-Service Teachers’ Perceptions of STEM Education:
Conceptualisations and Psychosocial Factors 168
Grant Cooper and Nicky Carr
11 Building STEM Self-Perception and Capacity in Pre-Service Science
Teachers through a School-University Mentor Program 190
Amanda Berry, Tricia McLaughlin and Grant Cooper
12 Building Academic Leadership in STEM Education 208
Tricia McLaughlin and Belinda Kennedy
13 Epilogue: What Now for Stem? 221
Linda Hobbs
Acknowledgements
A warm and heartfelt thanks to all the authors and reviewers who have so
kindly donated their time. We have a fantastic network of academics with
extensive experience in their respective fields; it was a joy to work with all of
you, and your contribution to this book has been valuable.
Acknowledgements to all authors, to Dr Claudia Orellana, RMIT University,
Australia and to Professors John Malone, Curtin University, Australia, Vasilis
Gialamas, National University of Athens and Ngai Ying Wong, The Education
University of Hong Kong, for their participation in the peer review process.
A special thank you to Claudia Orellana for her proof-reading of the final
drafts and to Associate Professor Linda Hobbs for her thoughtful Epilogue
chapter.
Figures and Tables
Figures
2.1 The interconnected cycles of design and research
(from Kolodner, Gray, & Fasse, 2003, reprinted with permission) 35
5.1 An example of a short task and its associated scoring rubric from
the SNMY project 2003–2006 84
5.2 Proportion of students by LAF zone and year level, initial phase
SNMY project, 2004 (n = 3169) 85
5.3 Proportion of students by LAF zone, RMF-p project (n = 1732) 89
5.4 Proportion of year 8 students by LAF zone, Palberton
Middle School (n = 70) 91
5.5 Proportion of year 8 students by LAF zone, Plumpton High
School 2015 (141 < n < 152) 94
7.1 Essential ingredients in inquiry-based education
(Artigue & Blomhoj, 2013, p. 801, reprinted with permission) 121
10.1 Attitudes to teaching STEM 177
10.2 Subjective norm to teach STEM 177
10.3 Self-efficacy measures teach STEM 178
10.4 Example visualisations 179
11.1 STEM project mentor framework 195
13.1 Principles of effective STEM education 227
Tables
1.1 The range of collaboration and integration models used by teachers
in 2016(cid:4)of the Successful Students STEM program (from Hobbs,
Cripps Clark & Plant, 2017, p. 144, reproduced with permission,
http://www.successfulstudents-stem.org.au/stem-in-schools) 18
3.1 Common discourse structures that can be used to position
the text and reading of that text 49
3.2 Building blocks with corresponding discourse analysis questions 50
5.1 Indicative potential of kitchen garden inquiry to address
year 7 curriculum expectations 78
5.2 Growth comparisons for the 2015 and 2016 year 9 cohorts,
Plumpton High School 94
6.1 Activities, schedule and approach for wonders of air camp 106
8.1 Rotated component matrix 142
Figures and Tables ix
8.2 Estimated marginal means of the six PCA components by gender,
school(cid:4)setting, and age 145
8.3 Tests of between-subjects effects 146
10.1 Confidence analysis of participants’ drawings 179
11.1 STEM workshops 196
12.1 Staff responses to survey questions (response rate: 100%; n=14) 214
12.2 Staff responses to survey questions (response rate: 100%; n=8) 216