In most middle schools, learning is segregated by discipline. Yet interdisciplinary approaches have been shown to cultivate creative thinking, support problem solving, and develop interest while supporting knowledge gains (NAE & NRC in STEM Integration in K-12 Education: Status, Prospects, and an Agenda for Research. National Academies Press,…

Building Information Modelling (BIM) has changed the way many civil engineers organise and execute their job in recent years. Many universities around the world have been adapting their curricula to include BIM education. However, this adaptation has been incomplete, occurring only in a small number of subjects. To fill this gap, this paper…

Just as steam was found to be a source of power during the Industrial Revolution, increasing factory production and improving transportation, today STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics) can be found to be a framework that empowers teachers, increases student engagement, and improves student understanding. Although a…

Complementing the aims of problem-based inquiry, a pedagogical approach called design thinking (DT) has students grapple with issues that require a creative redefinition and reimagining of solutions akin to professional skills of designers, who consider conflicting priorities and complex negotiations to arrive at a solution to an ill-defined…

There is currently significant interest in 3D fabrication in middle school classrooms. At its best 3D printing can be utilized in authentic design projects that integrate math, science, and technology, which facilitate deep learning by students. In essence, students are able to tinker in a virtual world using 3D design software and then tinker in…

Higher education in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) faces a number of challenges. There are many calls for STEM education to make significant changes moving forward, including calls for competency-based learning and greater integration of the humanities. These efforts require systemic change. Systemic change has significant…

Part One of this article ("Technology and Engineering Teacher," 75(4), December/January, 2016) presented a process that science, math, engineering, and technology teachers could use to collaborate and design integrated STEM courses. A conceptual framework was discussed that could provide a premise that educators interested in delivery of…

This study examines teachers' initial conceptions of an integrated STEM-PBL approach and their perceptions of what facilitates or hinders implementation in their schools. This study took place within the first year of a three-year STEM Professional Development (PD) program for middle school math, science and English language arts teachers. The two…

In this first of a two-part series, the authors report that STEM is still mostly science and mathematics, taught separately with little or no attention to technology and engineering. Where connections do get made to technology and engineering, too often they happen through several disconnected projects that lack coherence in content standards and…

Case-writing within an integrated, systems-based health professions education curriculum presents many unique challenges. Specifically, case-writing in this context must consider integration of multidisciplinary learning objectives and synthesis of biomedical and clinical sciences. Establishing an effective process for content integration and…

Recent publications have elevated the priority of increasing the integration of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) content for K-12 education. The STEM education community must invest in the development of valid and reliable to scales to measure STEM content, knowledge fusion, and perceptions of the nature of STEM. This brief…

Creating an innovative suite of courses within the Bachelor of Arts has required the development of a complex pedagogy, particularly when the needs of the context require an interdisciplinary approach. This paper, which utilises reflection on practice as its methodology, explores the Social Enterprise core stream which has been a significant…

We describe the Science Semester, a semester-long course block that integrates three science courses and a science education methods course for elementary teacher education majors, and examine prospective elementary teachers' developing conceptions about inquiry, science teaching efficacy, and reflections on learning through inquiry. The…

Literature is viewed as a natural "thinking" medium to help children experience learning in a contextual setting (Ward 2005). Though, as Draper (2002) contended, mathematics is a subject that children are often unable to recognize as useful in their lives, literature with mathematical components may be able to address this concern. Combining…

This paper reports on research from a network of high school and museum partnerships designed to explore techniques for integrating mathematics and physics learning experiences during the first year of high school. The foundation of the curriculum is a problem-based, museum-based, and hands-on approach to mathematics and physics. In this paper, we…