Technology-Supported Inquiry in STEM Teacher Education

The chapter describes the implementation of collaborative educational technologies in STEM teacher education to support teacher-candidates in acquiring inquiry-based teaching skills and positive attitudes about inquiry learning. The focus is on five different collaborative technology-enhanced pedagogies: (1) Peer Instruction, (2) collaborative design of conceptual questions with PeerWise, (3) data-driven STEM inquiry via using live data collection and analysis, (4) computer modeling-enhanced inquiry, and (5) collaborative reflection on peer teaching. Teacher-candidates experienced these pedagogical approaches first as learners, then reflected on them as future teachers, and lastly incorporated some of them during the practicum. As a result, teacher-candidates gained experience in promoting technology-enhanced inquiry in STEM education and began developing positive attitudes towards technology-enhanced inquiry-based STEM education.

STEM Teaching and Learning via Technology-Enhanced Inquiry

This chapter aims to address several limitations of Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) – a theoretical model used in the application of technology when teaching STEM disciplines. To this end, a supplement to TPACK drawn from the Action on Objects (AO) framework (Connell, 2001) is suggested. To illustrate the value of the proposed enhancement of TPACK, an example integrating science, technology, and mathematics is provided. The Texas College and Career Readiness Standards are used to demonstrate the relationship between the proposed theoretical modification of the leading model and the current teaching practice involving such scientific activities as measuring, record keeping, analyzing, conjecturing and evaluating. Additional suggestions and applications of the TPACK/AO model are provided.

Beyond Angry Birds™

This chapter explores digital web-based tools for engaging learners and promoting inquiry-based STEM learning. Specifically the authors analyze a selection of technological supports in STEM education, including remote laboratories and simulations, within the context of inquiry based teaching and learning in physics. Teaching physics through inquiry continue to create high levels of anxiety amongst elementary school teachers, which in turn influences their pedagogical choices and limits the possibility of spontaneous events arising from student exploration in the classroom. The authors maintain that teachers will require professional development opportunities to work within the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework to ensure that they are able to select from a broad spectrum of technological supports. The authors highlight the potential of web-based digital tools to promote inquiry-based STEM learning, and engage both teachers and students, thus potentially improving attitudes toward teaching and learning STEM content through digital technologies.

Collaborative Systems for Design-Based Learning

This chapter explores use of Design-based learning (DBL) and digital tools to facilitate collaborative learning through design-based projects. Design-based learning (DBL) is an educational approach that incorporates hands-own, authentic, multidisciplinary design tasks to identify problems and design solutions. With DBL, students typically work in teams and are tasked designing solutions to open-ended problems. Teams develop conceptual solutions to problems and then work through the design process to arrive at the creation of an actual artifact. This artifact may be fully functional or simply a model, prototype, or other representation of the complete system. STEM instructors and students should give careful attention to selecting the digital tools for collaboration. Some collaborative tools offer affordances and features that compliment the communication processes in one phase of the design process while another other tool may be better suited for the tasks specific to another phase.

Project-Based MOOC

This chapter describes a project-based massive open online course (MOOC) in nanotechnology and nanosensors that was offered in two languages: English and Arabic. A mixed methods research was conducted to examine the role of project-based learning in the process of knowledge construction and motivation to learn a MOOC. The study compared between three groups of science and engineering students: English MOOCers, Arabic MOOCers, and university students. Findings indicated positive attitudes about learning in a project-based MOOC, especially with relation to gaining work experience. Findings also indicated that in a project-based setting, MOOC participants were mostly driven by a desire to establish connections with peers, whereas university students were mostly motivated by their interest in the subject matter. Arabic MOOCers, who were less successful in solving ill-defined problems, narrowed the gap, and at the end of the course received similar grades in the final project.

Practicing Scientific Argumentation Through Social Media

The use of social media in and outside the classroom is increasing in the number of popular applications as well as pervasiveness in our culture. Teachers utilize social media to engage students, connect with experts, and expand their own professional learning. This chapter provides educators with information about the use of social media to support STEM practices. Social media can be used to engage students in active learning and problem-solving through student-posted claims and effective online questioning. Using social media supports the scientific practice of engaging in argument from evidence, as well as emulates how scientists collaborate on their own research and share research findings. Best practices and lessons learned are shared in this chapter, including a case study from a secondary science classroom and suggestions for the use of social media for educator professional learning.

Inquiry-Based Science Education and the Digital Research Triad

The chapter deals with a new research field that has arisen at the intersection of scientific experiment and emerging digital technologies. The classical triad of experimental research ‘subject-instrument-object' and its implementation in science education are in the focus of the chapter. The triad is studied in its evolution to a so-called digital triad corresponding to the experimental science of digital society. In the digital triad, each of the three components are transformed. The knowing subject - researcher is transformed to the digital scholar; the experimental instrument is transformed on the base of emerging cloud and mobile technologies; the research object comprising hybrid natural-artificial components emerges. The digital transformations of the experimental research triad and educational practices based on the digital triad are manifested in a number of pioneer inquiry-based projects analyzed in the chapter.

Computer-Supported Imagination

The purpose of this chapter is to explore some conceptual and methodological issues related to computer-based simulation as a teaching and learning method for STEM education. Two major themes will be examined in detail: 1) the barriers to the penetration of simulation into school programs; 2) simulation as a way to enhance scientific imagination in students. It is argued that scientific imagination is linked closely with mental simulation, a fundamental capacity of the human brain which allows us to move from static to dynamic mental representations. The role of mental simulation in understanding scientific concepts is discussed and an explicit statement is provided of the relation between computer simulation and mental simulation. On these grounds, computer simulation is viewed as a tool for extending human cognition by overcoming the limits of mental simulation. Finally, the implications of these findings for designing simulation-based instructional units and conducting lessons are discussed.

Integrating Technology in Preschool Science and Inquiry

Technology has brought about considerable changes in our private, social and professional lives, as well as in our culture and values. Therefore, educational frameworks should make an effort to become more relevant for young students and prepare them for the future in all aspects of career and life, with a focus on Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM). This chapter will discuss the opportunities and challenges of integrating technology into preschool classrooms (3-6 years of age). It attempts to determine the essence of judicious, proportionate, and beneficial integration of technology in preschool, with a particular focus on science and inquiry. Consideration is given to maintaining the children's creativity, their joy of play, their concrete and sensory exploration, their unmediated observation of their environment, their social interactions, and their safety. Examples of actual practices from preschool classrooms are presented followed by recommendations for successful technology integration in preschool curriculum.

Using ICT in STEM Education

The aim of this paper is to examine the use of digital technologies in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education (STEM). We will discuss the effectiveness of the teaching-learning process in terms of the elements that could possibly promote learning with the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in STEM education. This will be done, first, by taking a learner-centred approach to an activity that students carried out using ICT to performing a task set by the teacher (cognitive engagement in the task, motivation, nature of knowledge built). The aim was to understand how ICT could be a cognitive aid for the student. Second, a teacher-centred perspective to the development of prescribed tasks (form, knowledge carried by the task) was used to identify how ICT can be adapted to aid student learning in STEM education.