Design Based STEM Education For Cultivating Primary School Students’ Scientific Inquiry Ability

Increasingly,science,technology,engineering,and mathematics(STEM)education is being recognized internationally as underpinning economic growth and advancing the skills that societies need for the 21st century.In 2017,the Ministry of Education issued the "Primary School Science Curriculum Standard for Compulsory Education" to advocate an interdisciplinary approach to learning.It is suggested that teachers can try STEM education in teaching practice."Course Standard" advocates the development of inquiry-based learning and the cultivation of students’ scientific inquiry abilities.Nowadays,scientific inquiry ability has become an important index for the country to cultivate talents.Cultivating the ability of scientific inquiry is of great importance to the improvement of citizens’ scientific literacy.The interdisciplinary approach of STEM education can organically integrate different disciplines.Data processing and model building in scientific inquiry are all inseparable from mathematics.Technology and engineering can assist scientific inquiry,so this study attempts to use STEM courses to cultivate students’ Scientific inquiry ability.This research adopts literature research method and experimental research method,constructs the STEM teaching model based on design through combing the literature,commits itself to cultivate students’ scientific inquiry ability,designs specific courses according to the teaching model,and corrects the STEM teaching mode through multiple implementation.And verified its feasibility.According to questionnaires,interviews with teachers and students,student works,and other data,the design-based STEM teaching model can improve students’ interest in science learning and develop their scientific inquiry capabilities.According to the empirical investigation data and analysis results of this study,the main conclusions of this study are as follows:(1)From the point of view of learning interest questionnaires,design-based STEM teaching has a significant impact on students’ interest in learning science.Students become more interested in science learning.(2)From the pre-test and post-test questionnaires and interview data,the design-based STEM teaching has a significant positive impact on students’ scientific inquiry ability,and can effectively cultivate students’ inquiry ability.(3)Through the analysis of gender differences,the design-based STEM teaching can promote the development of boys’ reflection and evaluation ability and expression and communication ability.