Higher Education Research

 I plan to center my future research around reforming 7th grade math curriculum to include more Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) experiences for students. Therefore, I plan to utilize action research to implement and determine effective STEAM practices for educators to use in the middle school mathematics classroom. Moreover, the current 7th grade math curriculum needs reform that includes a more project-based learning approach to help students learn and grow at higher levels. In my experience, STEAM is hard to implement; therefore, I hope that my research provides the best strategies to help teachers and students commit to the new way of teaching and learning through a more collaborative approach. The STEAM problem-solving approach will provide time for students to collaborate and learn to work with others. STEAM provides opportunities for students to experience the learning process through providing authentic real-world problems for students to work through (Belbase et al., 2021). Researchers suggest that STEAM provides the opportunity for students to collaborate with one another and even build leadership skills needed for the future (Leskinen et al., 2020). According to researchers, STEAM encourages, “creativity, the habit of taking risks, engagement in collaborative, experiential learning and perseverance in problem-solving to develop today’s students as future leaders, innovators, scientists, engineers, educators, entrepreneurs, and learners of the twenty-first century” (Belbase et al., 2021, p.2919). Therefore, students will be working to solve future problems as a part of their social responsibility. This includes students reflecting on knowledge through journals that can be utilized as a part of the qualitative data collection. Researchers suggest journaling throughout the STEAM process to help students through the learning development (Belbase et al., 2021; Herro et al., 2018). Additionally, the real-world problems will provide students with the opportunity to learn about having integrity in the classroom as well as providing real-world experiences that help them to develop the professional skills needed in future opportunities. The Bible states, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him” (King James Bible, 1769/n.d., James 1:5). Moreover, this verse from the Bible teaches that we must search and seek for knowledge. Traditionally, educators provide students with information and students practice skills, but STEAM requires teachers to become facilitators of knowledge allowing students to become more responsible for the learning process (Herro et al., 2018). Therefore, the project-based approach modeled through the STEAM process will provide more learning experiences for students to be able to search for and seek knowledge through a more active, collaborative learning approach so that learning is more meaningful and permanent for students instead of the information just being memorized for an assessment and forgotten soon after.

                                                  References

Belbase, S., Mainali, B. R., Kasemsukpipat, W., Tairab, H., Gochoo, M., & Jarrah, A. (2021). At the dawn of Science, Technology, Engineering, arts, and Mathematics (STEAM) education: Prospects, priorities, processes, and problems. International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology, 53(11), 2919–2955. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020739x.2021.1922943Links to an external site.

Herro, D., Quigley, C., & Cian, H. (2018). The challenges of steam instruction: Lessons from the Field. Action in Teacher Education, 41(2), 172–190. https://doi.org/10.1080/01626620.2018.1551159Links to an external site.

King James Bible. (n.d.). King James Bible Online. https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Links to an external site. (Original work published 1769).

Leskinen, J., Kumpulainen, K., Kajamaa, A., & Rajala, A. (2020). The emergence of leadership in students’ group interaction in a school-based Makerspace. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 36(4), 1033–1053. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-020-00509-xLinks to an external site.