STEM Education
Design of a workshop
STEM
is an
umbrella term
Why STEM ?
inquiry
Problem solving
motivation
Skilled workforce
robot
coding
creativity
hands-on
Connections with our previous work …
HKAME
Geometry
Workshop
2014-15
函數與變量
以變量關係與圖像為主要起點，概念須從初中慢慢建立，一直以來的初高中教學都支離破碎，修訂後更難找到相關內容，情況或更惡劣，但這是 STEM 的重要元素。
另外，初高中都沒有正式介紹線性函數。初中二元一次方程的圖像只著眼方程的解，而高中直線方程主要考慮以分析法處理幾何問題，沒有提及把直線作函數圖像理解，但從二次函數開始，各種函數圖像陸續出現。
縱使初中修訂加入截矩計算，並強調配合科學科的應用，但只是介紹斜率作斜度計算（可謂純幾何概念），而非變量關係（rate of change）。缺乏函數概念，截距計算淪為低層次應用，無助學習其他科甚或發展 STEM 教育。順帶一提，描述兩變數關係的散點圖，不知何故刪去。
Comments for the consultation on the revised Math curriculum
Why STEM ?
Although global interest in STEM from educational and workforce perspectives has proliferated in recent years, the acronym was coined in the USA during the 1990s by the National Science Foundation.
The combining of the disciplines was seen as “a strategic decision made by scientists, technologists, engineers, and mathematicians to combine forces and create a stronger political voice”. Since this time, the debates and dilemmas surrounding STEM employment shortages and STEM education in general have compounded.
English, L. (2016) https://www.evernote.com/l/AANKuDPdlKlOpaBPqoPTw5pqwR5wjYvEfKw
An increased commitment to interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary STEM integration has appeared in recent years …
… STEM education is far more than a “convenient integration” of its four disciplines, rather it encompasses “real-world, problem-based learning” that links the disciplines “through cohesive and active teaching and learning approaches”.
… the disciplines “cannot and should not be taught in isolation, just as they do not exist in isolation in the real world or the workforce”.
English, L. (2016)
STEM
STEM Education
Integrated STEM Education
Levels of integration
Disciplinary | Concepts and skills are learned separately in each discipline. |
Multidisciplinary | Concepts and skills are learned separately in each discipline but within a common theme. |
Interdisciplinary | Closely linked concepts and skills are learned from two or more disciplines with the aim of deepening knowledge and skills. |
Transdisciplinary | Knowledge and skills learned from two or more disciplines are applied to real-world problems and projects, thus helping to shape the learning experience. |
English, L. (2016), based on Vasquez et al. (2013)
One example of how mathematics could provide core foundations and promote learning in the other disciplines is through a focus on mathematical literacy (English, 2015).
Mathematical literacy is foundational to STEM education, where skills in dealing with uncertainty and data are central to making evidence-based decisions involving ethical, economic and environmental dimensions.
English, L. (2016)
… STEM education is often accelerated or enriched science and mathematics education, rather than integration.
Learning through multiple, integrated subjects can produce deeper conceptual understandings, better development of skills, and higher achievement than learning the subjects in isolation.
Moore et al. (2016) p.9 https://www.evernote.com/l/AAOd6pjF5CFFOqqP2g0xbaWZtf28Fcic1lk
What is ‘Integrated STEM’ Education?
… the teaching and learning of the content and practices of disciplinary knowledge which include science and/or mathematics through the integration of the practices of engineering and engineering design of relevant technologies.
Bryan et al. (2016) pp.23-24 https://www.evernote.com/l/AAOd6pjF5CFFOqqP2g0xbaWZtf28Fcic1lk
STEM Practices and Skills in Integrated STEM Instruction
Bryan et al. (2016) pp.29-31
History of science education and the link to STEM
Koehler, Binns & Bloom (2016) pp.14-16 https://www.evernote.com/l/AAOd6pjF5CFFOqqP2g0xbaWZtf28Fcic1lk
inside the documents:
Project 2061: Science for All Americans (AAAS, 1989) &
Benchmarks for Science Literacy (AAAS, 1993) …
In The Nature of Mathematics (Chapter 2) and The Mathematical World (Chapter 9), mathematics is described as a “science of patterns and relationships” and an “applied science” and used as a “modeling process” that “plays a key role in almost all human endeavors”.
Koehler, Binns & Bloom (2016) p.15
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) (1993). Benchmarks for science literacy. New York: Oxford University Press. http://www.project2061.org/publications/bsl/online/index.php
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) (1993). Benchmarks for science literacy. New York: Oxford University Press. http://www.project2061.org/publications/bsl/online/index.php
Common Themes:
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) (1993). Benchmarks for science literacy. New York: Oxford University Press. http://www.project2061.org/publications/bsl/online/index.php
Some powerful ideas often used by mathematicians, scientists, and engineers are not the intellectual property of any one field or discipline. Indeed, notions of system, scale, change and constancy, and models have important applications in business and finance, education, law, government and politics, and other domains, as well as in mathematics, science, and technology. These common themes are really ways of thinking rather than theories or discoveries.
Science for All Americans recommends what all students should know about those themes, and the benchmarks in the four sections below suggest how student understanding of them should grow over the school years. Although the context of both Science for All Americans and Benchmarks is mainly science, mathematics, and technology, other contexts are identified here to emphasize the general usefulness of these themes.
Common Theme: Scale
Most variables in nature—size, distance, weight, temperature, and so on—show immense differences in magnitude. As their sophistication increases, students should encounter increasingly larger ratios of upper and lower limits of these variables. But that is only the starting point for the idea of changes of scale. The larger idea is that the way in which things work may change with scale. Different aspects of nature change at different rates with changes in scale, and so the relationships among them change, too. Probably the most easily demonstrated example is that as something changes size, its volume changes out of proportion to its area. So properties that depend on volume (such as mass and heat capacity) increase faster than properties that depend on area (such as bone strength and cooling surface). Therefore a large container of hot water cools off more slowly than a small container, and a large animal must have proportionally thicker legs than a small animal of otherwise similar shape.
Common Theme: Scale
Looking at how things change with scale requires familiarity with the range of values and with how to express the range in numbers that make some sense.
So children should start by noticing extremes of familiar variables and how things may be different at those extremes. There is no problem here, in that most children are entranced by "biggest," "littlest," "fastest," and "slowest"—giants and superlatives in general.
In any case, scale should be introduced explicitly only when students already have a rich ground of experiences having to do with magnitudes and the effects of changing them.
STEM workshop 2017 summer
Imagine that we looked at all of your classmates' fields.��Now imagine that we made a graph of the area of those fields against their length.��Sketch what you think that graph would look like.