Research On The Design Of STEM Activities In Kindergarten

STEM(Science,Technology,Engneering,Mathematics)education aims to promote learners’ academic achievement in the field of Science and Mathematics,enhance individual’s ability to use interdisciplinary knowledge skills to solve problems and satisfy the societal requirement for talents in the 21 st century,Therefore,it has become a hot topic of K-12 education reform worldwide in the past decades.With the continuous development of STEM education,the focus of STEM education has gradually shifted from higher education to K-12 education,and greater attention has been paid to the early childhood STEM education.Numerous studies have shown that high-quality early STEM experiences can provide young children with rich opportunities to interact with the environment,peers and adults,promote young children’s brain development,and improve their overall cognitive and thinking development.Early STEM education can also stimulate young children’s interest and positive attitude towards STEM subjects,laying the foundation for formal STEM learning in the future.High-quality early STEM education contribute to the the improvement of children’s overall quality,which has far-reaching significance for improving the overall quality of the social population and effectively promoting individual success and social and economic development.Activities design is the key to promote the development of early childhood STEM,and the integrated STEM activities in kindergarten is the key to implement STEM education in early childhood settings.For kindergarten teachers,it is a new activities form different from the traditional science and mathematics activities in concept,content and form.There is a lack of systematic discussion on how to design integrated STEM activities in literature,which has become one of the most significant obstacles affecting the development of early childhood STEM education in China.This study employs the theories of children’s cognitive development and activities design to explore the theory and method of integrated kindergarten STEM activities design.This study focused on the following research question:"How to design integrated kindergarten STEM activities?” and three subquestions were formulated: 1.What is the basic theoretical framework of integrated kindergarten STEM activities? 2.How to design integrated kindergarten STEM activities? 3.What is the learning outcome of integrated kindergarten STEM activities? The specifics of the present study are listed as follows:Firstly,through the in-depth analysis of the theory of young children’s cognitive development,STEM learning and activities design,the present research clarified the value and elements of integrated kindergarten STEM activities,including the activities’ s objectives,content,implementation and evaluation,thus form the basic theoretical framework of integrated kindergarten STEM activities.Secondly,the STEM literacy for kindergarten children is constructed through Delphi method.According to Taylor’s theory,learning objectives play a leading role in activities design.Early STEM literacy is the overall goal of STEM learning in kindergarten.The construction of the STEM literacy for kindergarten children can guide the design and development of integrated kindergarten STEM activities,inclding the content selection,evaluation development and learning activity design.Thirdly,the design-based research method is used to construct an integrated kindergarten STEM teaching model.The design of activities needs a set of operation process,which is the so-called teaching mode.By combing STEM education theories and related research,this study proposed a prototype of integrated kindergarten STEM teaching model,and carried out three rounds of STEM implementation based on the prototype of the teaching model,and finally finalized the teaching model through iterative optimization.Finally,in order to investigate and reflect on the theories and methods of integrated kindergarten STEM activities,this study investigated the learning out of integrated kindergarten STEM activities through in-depth analysis of the data of children’s learning performance data collected during the three-round implementation.The results of the present study include: First,it puts forward the basic theoretical framework of integrated kindergarten STEM activities,including the activities idea and activities elements.The activities concept is determined to be "promoting the development of children’s 21 st century skills in a global and technology-driven society";The activities goal of the course is “to cultivate children’s early STEM literacy”.The activities content is "STEM enlightenment and life-based";Activities implementation is "high-low structure activity integration and gamification teaching";The activities evaluation is "focusing on child performance and development".Secondly,the STEM literacy for kindergarten children is constructed.The literacy framework consists of three dimensions of STEM knowledge,STEM skills and STEM dispositions,27 components and 45 literacy items,and the weight distribution of different parts of the framework was calculated.Thirdly,an integrated kindergarten STEM teaching model(ED-ES model)is constructed.ED-ES teaching model takes engineering design process as the basic teaching step,and makes appropriate adjustment according to children’s learning and development characteristics.The teaching model includes five teaching steps,that is: defining problem,designing plan,production and testing,optimization and improvement,and communication and sharing.Centering on engineering design objectives,it is carried out through interaction between teachers and students.Fourthly,the learning outcome of integrated kindergarten STEM activities is assessed.Through interviews,classroom observation and work analysis,we collected children’s learning performance in STEM activities,and compared the changes of children’s emergent STEM literacy before and after learning activities.It is found that integrated kindergarten STEM activities have significantly promoted children’s STEM knowledge,STEM skills and STEM dispositions.