Research On Design And Practice Of STEM Activity Cases For Primary Students Based On PBL

The 21st century is the era of knowledge economy,science and technology are developing rapidly.Interdisciplinary integration has become a major feature of the development of science and technology.The structure of society's demand for talents is also constantly changing,the new era urgently needs innovative,compound and applied talents.STEM education is an interdisciplinary integrated education based on science,technology,engineering,and mathematics.It advocates the use of interdisciplinary knowledge to solve problems in real situations,to cultivate students' ability to cooperate,integrate interdisciplinary problem-solving skills,creativity,and practical skills,etc..Currently,STEM education has attracted widespread attention from the science education community around the world,and has become a hot topic in the exploration of the theory and practice of international science education.At present,there is a lack of close connection between theory and practice in STEM education in our country.The teachers have difficulties in the effective design and implementation of STEM activities,as well as lacking the guidance of operable teaching theory and the reference of experience,which makes it difficult to realize STEM teaching in schools.Nowadays,although some schools have begun to try classroom-based STEM teaching,they mostly emphasize on hands-on practice to make products,tends to overlook students' understanding of knowledge and weaken the value and ability of using interdisciplinary knowledge to solve problems.Teachers lack effective teaching strategies to change this situation.Project-based learning takes project-driven issues as the main line,and allows students to engage in the processes of collaborative inquiry,engineering design,production of works.It is an effective teaching strategy for STEM activities.This research will aim at cultivating students' STEM literacy,integrate project-based learning with STEM education,grasp the "Compulsory Education Primary School Science Curriculum Standards(2017)",applying the literature research method,questionnaire survey method,including interview method to carry out the design and empirical research of primary school students' STEM activities.First of all,this research summarizes the design concepts,principles and elements of elementary school students' STEM activities based on project learning,on the basis of literature review and theoretical discussion.On this basis,the overall framework and teaching links for elementary school students' STEM activity design based on project learning are constructed process.Secondly,based on the overall framework of STEM project teaching activities for elementary school students constructed under the support of STEM education and related theories based on project learning,three elementary school STEM project learning activity cases were designed around the main concepts in the "Compulsory Education Elementary Science Curriculum Standards(2017)".Finally,choosing the “Roller Coaster” activity case to conduct an empirical study in the sixth grade of a public elementary school in Shapingba District,Chongqing.Adopting SPSS Statistics 26 to process the data collected by the questionnaires on STEM knowledge,STEM ability,and STEM attitude before and after the test.Combined with student STEM project learning manual,activity process evaluation form and interview content were analyzed and investigated.The research shows:(1)The STEM project learning activities of this empirical study can promote students' understanding of the four dimensions of STEM knowledge: scientific knowledge,technical knowledge,engineering knowledge and mathematical knowledge,especially the understanding of scientific knowledge is extremely significant.Not only can it help students understand knowledge in the hands-on process,but students can also apply them to hands-on practice through their understanding of knowledge concepts to solve problems in real situations.(2)Although the overall improvement of students' STEM abilities after the end of this STEM project learning empirical research activity is not good,there are several STEM competence dimensions in terms of problem identification,analysis ability,project design ability,hands-on production ability,expression and reflection ability,and problem inquiry ability.There are extremely significant changes.The improvement effect in the aspects of information collection and analysis,data processing and interpretation,cooperation,creativity,and interdisciplinary integration is not obvious,and it is necessary to train students in a targeted manner in future research.(3)The STEM project learning activities of this empirical study have achieved good results in cultivating students' interest in STEM related subjects and STEM professional attitudes.Especially in terms of interest in engineering disciplines,students' STEM attitudes have changed significantly.