The STEM education phenomenon and its impact on school curriculum
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POINT AND COUNTERPOINT
The STEM education phenomenon and its impact on school curriculum Judy Anderson 1 Published online: 18 September 2020 # Australian Curriculum Studies Association 2020
Keywords STEM curriculum . 21st century skills . Authentic problem solving . Inquiry-based pedagogy
Introduction The growth of the STEM education phenomenon has been exponential if measured by the increase in the number of articles and research papers published about STEM this century (Li, Wang, Xiao, & Froyd, 2020). While many of the STEM papers published in journals have been contributed by authors from the USA, more recently researchers from Australia, Canada and Taiwan have made substantial contributions with many other countries now following the trend (Li, et al., 2020). Since STEM education was born in the USA in the late nineties (Bybee, 2013), STEM has now become a focus of the policy discourse in many countries with evidence that governments want improvements in mathematical and scientific literacy for all students, they want more students to continue to study STEM beyond compulsory schooling requirements, and they want increased interest in pursuing STEM careers (Freeman, Marginson, & Tytler, 2015; Marginson, Tytler, Freeman, & Roberts, 2013). Driven by political and economic imperatives, many STEM policy documents published in the USA were ambitious but lacked clear advice for schools and school systems about STEM curriculum and pedagogy. In their philosophical inquiry of USA policy documents, Chesky and Wolfmeyer (2015) suggested STEM was “a discourse, a social construct developed as a response to various events” (p. 9) with little indication “about STEM content (ontology) … best practices of teaching STEM content (epistemology), and aims of STEM policy reforms (axiology)” (p. 10). Hence sweeping statements about addressing ideals for the nation through a STEM agenda were left open to interpretation with
* Judy Anderson [email protected] 1
The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
the consequent development of many ad hoc programs ranging from promoting the individual STEM subjects to developing integrated STEM curriculum and inquiry-based pedagogies (Bybee, 2013; Honey, Pearson, & Schweingruber, 2014). There was no clear vision for STEM or STEM education by policy makers, politicians, and other stakeholders. Hence the growth in interest in STEM education and the ongoing promotion of STEM into the school curriculum remains a contested area of investigation and begs many questions – some of which have formed the focus of existing publications while others remain unresolved. To set the agenda for this Point and Counterpoint on STEM education, I would like to consider the following questions and deliberate whether we are any closer to having a coherent vision for STEM education. 1. What has led to the growth in STEM and STEM education? 2. What are the different interpretations of STEM education? 3. What might a STEM school curriculum look like? 4. How should STEM curriculum be assessed?
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