Teachers' Professional Developments and Enactments in STEM Education: Adaptation and Reflections from Theoretical to Practice

Abstract

none

Teachers are advocated as the cornerstone for the effectiveness of any innovative education, including STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education. STEM education’s effectiveness has been proved on students learning performance for decades. However, educators might consider enhancing teachers’ teaching abilities on STEM education to deploy STEM education popularly. Teachers have been training for pedagogical content knowledge of specific subjects. Meanwhile, STEM education is an integration of STEM sub-fields, including intersections between STEM sub-subjects. Therefore, enhancing teachers’ professional learning has become a prerequisite for implement STEM education effectively and widely. That motivated me on a research topic related to teachers’ professional development in STEM education.Specifically, this dissertation chose Vietnam as the research context. STEM education has been deployed in Vietnam for around five years but unpopularly. Many private schools mainly implemented informal STEM activities. Schools and teachers have endeavored to teach STEM effectively when the national STEM curriculum has not been developed yet. Educators might consider enhancing Vietnamese teachers’ capacities to ensure for effectiveness and popularities of STEM education. My research participants were mainly Vietnamese teachers and students in this current dissertation.I conducted three inter-related studies related to teachers’ professional development in Vietnam to effectively deploy and strengthen STEM education. Firstly, I examined professional development models by reviewing 29 related empirical studies. Study 1 affirmed strategies for effective professional development in the global context. The results concluded that professional developers could adapt 14 strategies to enable teachers to enhance KIP (Knowledge, Implementations, and Perceptions) as professional developments. Then, I analyzed the current status of STEM education by surveying 186 teachers’ points of view. Study 2 proved the potential for effective implementation could have in the national context, Vietnam. Quantitative analysis showed that Vietnamese teachers had a reasonable understanding of STEM education, advocated STEM competencies as important, but still had considerations for STEM implementation. Such findings of the first two studies motivated me to the third study. Study 3 was conducted to investigate teachers’ teaching practices after being trained by effective strategies for professional development. Study 3 desired to measure for the continuing process, which was from theoretical adaptations to practical enactments.Two strategies of professional development were adopted. After training, three teachers deployed the STEM curriculum for 107 students in 8 grade. The STEM curriculum was designed following the 6E (Engage, Explain, Explore, Engineer, Enrich, Evaluate) instructional model with technology integration CCR (Cloud Class Room). Classroom videotapes, teachers’ responses, and teachers’ interviews were mix-method analyses by NVIVO and SPSS. Study 3 showed that teachers’ epistemological framings in STEM teaching which was as delivering a product. Besides, teachers expressed positive perceptions and considerations of STEM education. This dissertation ended with reflections on teachers’ practices after study 3 to theoretical results in study 1. Also, the dissertation emerged recommendations for the betterment of STEM implementation and further researches, including the Vietnam context.