The Nature of Technology

Technology is an important part of the STEM acronym and unites and provides processes to tie all of the STEM disciplines together. Science, Engineering, and Math all depend on Technology to visualize and solve problems. Technology assists the other STEM fields to be creative but also carries with it its own social and cultural implications. To discuss the nature of technology we must first come to a shared definition of technology. This task can be difficult because there are many different lenses through which technology can be viewed. For example, technology can be a thought process, a way of knowing, and a tool. Definitions of technology are influenced by how it is used in practice and the professional organizations like IEEE, ISTE, CSTA, and NCTM that provide guidance and standards for how technology can and should be used. As our lives become more dependent on technology, and jobs become possible only by its use, the ethical nature of technology grows more important to both our present and our future. This chapter ends with a discussion of the work to be done including research on how technology and its affordances interacts with the work and creative activity in the other STEM fields and how technology could be leveraged to support curriculum in the other STEM areas.https://orc.library.atu.edu/atu_faculty_books/1066/thumbnail.jp

Investigating the epistemic nature of STEM: analysis of science curriculum documents from the USA using the family resemblance approach

Although STEM education has been prevalent in curriculum policy and research literature, the precise epistemic nature of STEM and how it applies in education are relatively understudied. In this chapter, we use the framework of the Family Resemblance Approach (FRA) as a basis for highlighting the epistemic similarities and differences between the constituent STEM disciplines as represented in two US science curriculum documents. FRA allows for understanding constituent disciplines of STEM as members of a “family” that share particular features but also highlights domain specificity where particular knowledge and practices are specific to the respective disciplines. Our aim is to explore the affordances of FRA in clarifying the epistemic nature of STEM and in contributing to curriculum analysis. To do this, we present an analysis of the US Science for All Americans and the Next Generation Science Standards to examine their coverage of epistemic underpinnings of STEM disciplines and discuss implications for curriculum policy

Visible Parts, Invisible Whole : Swedish Technology Student Teachers’ Conceptions about Technological Systems

Technological systems are included as a component of national technology curricula and standards for primary and secondary education as well as corresponding teacher education around the world. Little is known, however, of how pupils, students, and teachers conceive of technological systems. In this article we report on a study investigating Swedish technology student teachers’ conceptions of technological systems. The following research question is posed: How do Swedish technology student teachers conceive of technological systems? Data was collected through in-depth qualitative surveys with 26 Swedish technology student teachers. The data was analysed using a hermeneutic method, aided by a theoretical synthesis of established system theories (system significants). The main results of the study are that the technology student teachers expressed diverse conceptions of technological systems, but that on average almost half of them provided answers that were considered as undefined. The parts of the systems that the students understood were mostly the visible parts, either components, devices, or products such as buttons, power lines, hydroelectric plants, or the interface with the software inside a mobile phone. However, the ‘invisible’ or abstract aspects of the technological systems, such as flows of information, energy or matter, or control operations were difficult to understand for the majority of the students. The flow of information was particularly challenging in this regard. The students could identify the input and often the output of the systems, that is, what systems or components do, but the processes that take place within the systems were elusive. Comparing between technological systems also proved difficult for many students. The role of humans was considered important but it was mostly humans as users not as actors on a more systemic level, for example, as system owners, innovators, or politicians. This study confirms previous research in that the students had a basic understanding of structure, input and output of a technological system. Thus, the adult students in this study did not seem to have better understanding of technological systems than school pupils and teachers in previous studies, although this is in line with previous investigations on the general system thinking capabilities of children and adults. The most important implication of this study is that students need to be trained in systems thinking, particularly regarding how components work and connect to each other, flows (especially of information), system dependency, and the human role in technological systems