Engineering the Path to Higher-Order Thinking in Elementary Education: A Problem-Based Learning Approach for STEM Integration

As we progress into the 21st century, higher-order thinking skills and achievement in science and math are essential to meet the educational requirement of STEM careers. Educators need to think of innovative ways to engage and prepare students for current and future challenges while cultivating an interest among students in STEM disciplines. An instructional pedagogy that can capture students’ attention, support interdisciplinary STEM practices, and foster higher-order thinking skills is problem-based learning. Problem-based learning embedded in the social constructivist view of teaching and learning (Savery & Duffy, 1995) promotes self-regulated learning that is enhanced through exploration, cooperative social activity, and discourse (Fosnot, 1996). This quasi-experimental mixed methods study was conducted with 98 fourth grade students. The study utilized STEM content assessments, a standardized critical thinking test, STEM attitude survey, PBL questionnaire, and field notes from classroom observations to investigate the impact of problem-based learning on students’ content knowledge, critical thinking, and their attitude towards STEM. Subsequently, it explored students’ experiences of STEM integration in a PBL environment. The quantitative results revealed a significant difference between groups in regards to their content knowledge, critical thinking skills, and STEM attitude. From the qualitative results, three themes emerged: learning approaches, increased interaction, and design and engineering implementation. From the overall data set, students described the PBL environment to be highly interactive that prompted them to employ multiple approaches, including design and engineering to solve the proble

Establishing a K-12 circuit design program

Outreach, as defined by Wikipedia, is an effort by an organization or group to connect its ideas or practices to the efforts of other organizations, groups, specific audiences, or the general public. This paper describes a computer engineering outreach project of the Department of Computer Engineering at Ege University, Izmir, Turkey, to a local elementary school. A group of 14 K-12 students was chosen by a four-stage selection method to participate in this project. This group was then taught discrete mathematics and logic design courses from the core curriculum of the Computer Engineering program. The two 11-week courses have a total of 132 contact h. The course contents are conveyed through both theoretical lessons and laboratory sessions. All of the laboratory sessions were carried out by K-12 students. Volunteer teachers from the elementary school participated in the project. The evaluations carried out during and at the end of project indicated the degree of satisfaction on the part of students and teachers. The project is still ongoing with the same methodology in its third year. © 2009 IEEE