STEM futures and practice, can we teach STEM in a more meaningful and integrated way?

Integrating Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects can be engaging for students, can promote problem-solving and critical thinking skills and can help build real-world connections. However, STEM has long been an area of some confusion for some educators. While they can see many of the conceptual links between the various domains of knowledge they often struggle to meaningfully integrate and simultaneously teach the content and methodologies of each these areas in a unified and effective way for their students. Essentially the question is;how can the content and processes of four disparate and yet integrated learning areas be taught at the same time? How can the integrity of each of the areas be maintained and yet be learnt in a way that is complementary? Often institutional barriers exitin schools and universities to the integration of STEM. Organizationally, at a departmental and administrative level, the teaching staff may be co-located, but when it comes to classroom practice or the teaching and learning of these areas they are usually taught very separately. They are usually taught in different kinds of spaces, in different ways (using different pedagogical approaches) and at different times. But is this the best way for students to engage with the STEM areas of learning? How can we make learning more integrated, meaningful and engaging for the students

Design and technology for pre-service primary teachers

In many education systems in the western world, Design and Technology is now an important part of the school curriculum. In Queensland, Australia, Technology is one of the Key Learning Areas (KLA’s) for students in compulsory years of schooling. The Technology Syllabus was completed and trialled in Queensland primary schools in 2003. The syllabus encourages students to think creatively and work technologically. This paper describes how design and technology was taught to pre-service primary teachers at an Australian University. The pre-service teachers were involved in a range of activities which promoted creative thinking, active learner involvement, team work, problem solving, working technologically, and engagement in authentic tasks. The tasks included designing and making products such as kites, land yachts, towers, bridges, and LEGO robots. Activity sequences, based on the products made, are planned by the pre-service teachers and involve the phases of the Technology Practice Cycle identified in the Technology Syllabus. Teams of pre-service teachers also used the cycle of Investigate, Ideate, Produce, and Evaluate, to create their own technology products. The use of Wikis, Blogs, and digital videos are integral to sharing ideas within the teams of pre-service teachers and across the unit cohort. The paper also provides examples of pre-service teacher feedback on various aspects of the Design and Technology unit

Lessons in persistence: Investigating the challenges faced by preservice teachers in teaching coding and computational thinking in an unfamiliar context

An ongoing problem for teacher education institutions is bridging the gap between theory and practice and offering authentic experiences to challenge preservice teachers’ pedagogical decision-making. Preservice practicums simulate teaching and can, at best, offer controlled experiences in familiar settings. This restricts the opportunities for preservice teachers to develop confidence in their own pedagogical decision-making and to adapt curriculum to meet unknown or unforeseen conditions. This paper describes, through a small-scale qualitative case study, a teaching experience in an unfamiliar setting, the persistent actions taken to respond to a specific context and the impact this had on preservice teacher knowledge and self-efficacy. The study found that preservice teacher self-efficacy can be scaffolded in real-world contexts provided sufficient planning, peer support and mentoring is available

Congestion Prediction in Internet of Things Network using Temporal Convolutional Network A Centralized Approach

The unprecedented ballooning of network traffic flow, specifically, Internet of Things (IoT) network traffic, has big stressed of congestion on todays Internet. Non-recurring network traffic flow may be caused by temporary disruptions, such as packet drop, poor quality of services, delay, etc. Hence, the network traffic flow estimation is important in IoT networks to predict congestion. As the data in IoT networks is collected from a large number of diversified devices which have unlike format of data and also manifest complex correlations, so the generated data is heterogeneous and nonlinear in nature. Conventional machine learning approaches unable to deal with nonlinear datasets and suffer from misclassification of real network traffic due to overfitting. Therefore, it also becomes really hard for conventional machine learning tools like shallow neural networks to predict the congestion accurately. Accuracy of congestion prediction algorithms play an important role to control the congestion by regulating the send rate of the source. Various deeplearning methods (LSTM, CNN, GRU, etc.) are considered in designing network traffic flow predictors, which have shown promising results. In this work, we propose a novel congestion predictor for IoT, that uses Temporal Convolutional Network (TCN). Furthermore, we use Taguchi method to optimize the TCN model that reduces the number of runs of the experiments. We compare TCN with other four deep learning-based models concerning Mean Absolute Error (MAE) and Mean Relative Error (MRE). The experimental results show that TCN based deep learning framework achieves improved performance with 95.52% accuracy in predicting network congestion. Further, we design the Home IoT network testbed to capture the real network traffic flows as no standard dataset is available

The SEE Box: Creating new learning opportunities across STEM disciplines in developing countries

The Internet is loaded with high quality resources that can make a difference to how students develop conceptual connections across STEM disciplines. However, connectivity is a major challenge for many users throughout the world. In many cases even after connectivity is achieved, the quality of the connection dictates how the technology is used. Connectivity in developing countries is even more significant as a problem. This paper specifically focuses on the SEE Box as a tool for addressing the problem of connectivity and the progress that has been made. The SEE Box device has evolved from the Rachel Pi, which is an offline resources library. The SEE Box has almost 35 gigabytes of resources that are suitable for STEM and other disciplines. The ongoing development of the SEE Box has primarily been driven by the engagement of staff and students from an Australian university in outreach service learning projects in Fijian and Malaysian schools

Integrating robotics in primary school activities

This article outlines the integration of robotics in two settings in a primary school. This initiative was part of an Australian Research Council project which was undertaken at this school. The article highlights how robotics was integrated in a technology unit in a year four class. It also explains how it was embedded into an after-school program which catered for students from years five to seven. From these experiences further possibilities of engaging with robotics are also discussed

Introducing ICT to a primary school in a developing country: A Fijian experience

One aspect of quality education in the 21st century is the availability of digital resources in schools. Many developing countries need to build this capability – not just in terms of technology but teacher capability as well. One of the ways to achieve such capacity is through knowledge sharing between teachers and educators in developed and developing countries. Over time such collaboration can have a lasting impact on all participants on both sides of the digital divide. This paper reports on how such collaboration can occur. It focuses on the initial stages of a long-term initiative where our primary objective is to develop models, which demonstrate how we (in developed countries) can engage productively and meaningfully with schools in developing countries to build their ICT capacity. As part of this initiative, we introduced laptops and LEGO robotics tool kits to a rural primary school in Fiji. We developed ICT activities that aligned with the curriculum in a number of subjects. In addition, we worked with the teachers over two weeks to build their expertise

Adaptive teachers embracing new ways of learning with robotics in Chinese schools

In July 2010, China announced the “National Plan for Medium and Long-term Education Reform and Development(2010-2020)” (PRC 2010). The Plan calls for an education system that: • promotes an integrated development which harnesses everyone’s talent; • combines learning and thinking; unifies knowledge and practice; • allows teachers to teach according to individuals’ needs; and • reforms education quality evaluation and personnel evaluation systems focusing on performance including character, knowledge, ability and other factors. This paper discusses the design and implementation of a Professional Learning Program (PLP) undertaken by 432 primary, middle and high school teachers in China. The aim of this initiative was to develop adaptive expertise in using technology that facilitated innovative science and technology teaching and learning as envisaged by the Chinese Ministry of Education’s (2010-2020) education reforms. Key principles derived from literature about professional learning and scaffolding of learning informed the design of the PLP. The analysis of data revealed that the participants had made substantial progress towards the development of adaptive expertise. This was manifested not only by advances in the participants’ repertoires of Subject Matter Knowledge and Pedagogical Content Knowledge but also in changes to their levels of confidence and identities as teachers. It was found that through time the participants had coalesced into a professional learning community that readily engaged in the sharing, peer review, reuse and adaption, and collaborative design of innovative science and technology learning and assessment activities

Designing learning activities for a technologically integrated curriculum.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) now play a significant part in many classrooms. New and sophisticated technologies are introduced to the education market regularly. But no matter how good the tools, unless teachers are convinced and willing to design, develop, and implement appropriate pedagogies that use the new technologies; the new gizmos are unlikely to succeed in classrooms. In many schools across the globe, teachers have blended new technologies in an array of innovative ways. This paper describes such an initiative which is currently underway at a high school in Queensland, Australia. A group of year eight students (first year in high school) and their teachers in the Technologically Integrated Curriculum (TIC) Program use ICT and related technologies in all their subjects. Purpose-build rooms accommodate the students to do their work at school. They also use Blackboard to access learning materials after school hours. Qualitative data were gathered from teachers (N =10) through structured and unstructured interviews to ascertain their perceptions of the new initiative. Teachers in this program had between 5-30 years of teaching experience. This investigation identified challenges faced by teachers and identifies the factors and the key questions associated with designing learning activities in a technology rich learning environment