Teachers' Professional Development for Integrating STEM Education in Primary Curriculums

Abstract

As STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education has become a heated topic of k-12 education, the teaching approach of integrating engineering into school curriculums is gaining an increasing attention. Engineering is believed to connect knowledge with authentic life experiences while it enables students an enjoyable hands-on experience of problem-solving and logical thinking. In Hong Kong, the integration of engineering into primary school curriculums faces the challenge that teachers are not trained with knowledge and pedagogy of teaching engineering or STEM education. Hence to promote the integrated STEM education in primary schools, attention should be paid to teachers’ professional development (PD). To provide suggestions to PD developers on 1). how teachers could be trained and changed by attending PD, and 2). their concerns in teaching STEM curriculum, this paper reports the flow of how researchers support teachers’ training and how teachers’ change happens after attending PD. To answer the above-mentioned research questions, qualitative analysis has been conducted through semi-structured interview and observation. As results, teachers’ changes have been identified in practical teaching and attitude & beliefs toward STEM curriculum. In the end, related future work will be discussed based on teachers’ concerns and expectations.