Creating Equitable STEM Access: Models of moving from theory to practice

Abstract

My 3-paper dissertation is an extension of my own teaching experience. I became an elementary science specialist around the time that the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS Lead States, 2013) were being created and a noticeable shift in science teacher literature and research occurred because of the inclusion of engineering and the push toward integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) (Koehler, Binns, & Bloom, 2015; Roehrig, Johnson, Moore, &Bryan, 2015). While STEM education continues to receive funding and endorsements from government sources (Herschbach, 2011), the impact in K-12 schools remains limited. Atkinson and Mayo (2010) press that the issue around STEM education then is not “a lack of political will in Washington and state capitals, but a lack of the right approach to the problem” (p. 7). The three papers that comprise my dissertation explore approaches that are based on praxis between the existing literature surrounding STEM education and the practice of STEM. Like Atkinson and Mayo (2010), I believe that we need to reimagine our approach on integrating STEM in K-12 spaces, focusing on pressing realities that teachers work within each day. Each of the three papers that make up my dissertation address this issue in from a unique approach. Paper 1, titled Using Models of Integrated Curriculum to Describe Enacted STEM Learning when Prescribed Standardized Curricula was Present, addresses the challenge of prescribed standardized curriculum when implementing new integrated approaches to teaching and learning. Standardized curriculum is a rising trend in public education, but this study also found it to be a barrier to STEM integration. In this paper, models of integration that teachers used to integrate STEM when under the restriction of using a prescribed standardized curriculum are identified and described. Paper 2, titled A Teacher and Researcher’s Reflection on the Aspects of an Effective School-University Partnership, is based in a university-school partnership created to promote integrated STEM programming in urban middle schools. This study investigated how school-university partnerships can be an effective vehicle for STEM integration in schools. This paper details the working relationship and how an effective STEM partnership was implemented through co-created narrative inquiry from the lens of both the researcher and teacher leader. It also gives recommendations for those who are entering into partnership spaces in the future. Paper 3, titled What do Elementary Teachers need to integrate STEM? was an exploratory study to determine what factors elementary teachers in schools with STEM programming identified as being important to STEM integration. A statewide survey was sent out to self-identified schools STEM schools that asked elementary teachers to identify what factors they believed were important to integrate STEM. As elementary teachers are not well-prepared to teach STEM (Goodnough, Pelch, & Stordy, 2014), it is important to understand their experiences and needs when asked to develop and promote STEM learning experiences for students. As an exploratory study, this paper provides suggestions and questions for those interested in STEM integration in elementary grades. After looking at three studies of STEM moving from theory to practice, similarities across all three papers are identified and expanded upon. The last chapter summarized and expanded upon common themes across all three papers.