Teo, Tang Wee

Children are by nature curious and they are motivated to explore the world around them. Their science process skills develop as early as infancy and throughout their informal schooling years. A lack of external stimuli in the environment which allow them to actively engage in science learning may result in them not developing fully in the cognitive, psychomotor, and affective aspects. As such, science education at early childhood is of great importance to many aspects of a child's development and researchers have suggested that children should begin learning science in their early years of schooling. In Singapore, science is not formally introduced to the Singapore school curriculum until primary three. However, some teachers do teach science to primary one and two students. In the MOE Kindergarten Curriculum Framework, the espoused views about the roles science teachers should undertake and the learning outcomes of science learning can be found in the learning area ''Discovery of the World''. This is a proposal for an exploratory two-year research study ''Children are Natural Scientists'': Learning Science in Early Childhood and Early Primary Years that aims to examine how Singapore young children (ages 4-8) engage in science learning. The research question and sub-questions we want to address are: How do young children engage in science learning? 1. How science process skills do they use as participated in the science activities? 2. What forms of science talk do they use as they participated in the science activities? This is a first Singapore study that introduces science to preschool and early primary children. The short-term goal of the study is to develop knowledge about ways preschool and early primary Singapore children engage in science learning. Our long-term goal is build on the work done in this exploratory study to conduct a larger scale study with more science activities. The repertoire of science activities can become resources for Singapore preschool and primary teachers. The research findings will become resources for us to conduct teacher professional development courses for teachers so that they may learn how to use the science activities in their own classrooms. The intellectual merit of this study is that it contributes to the existing early childhood science education literature which is mostly based in western contexts and does not contain any studies about Singapore students at these grade levels. The broader impact of this study is that can provide empirical evidence showing the importance of science education at early childhood/primary levels to local science educators and policy makers.

Most STEM curricula focus on problem-solving an authentic issue. However, design-centric STEM curricula have been addressed to a lesser extent. This article reports on findings from a case study on a group of students that have conducted a STEM inquiry project to problem-solve an authentic issue. The STEM inquiry transition to design-centric STEM was organically derived from the interactions between the teacher and students. Qualitative data analysis of the students’ interviews, written reports and reflections was conducted using a prescriptive list of codes that categorises different types of knowledge in 21st century learning. The findings showed students’ content, meta, and humanistic learning outcomes during problem-centric inquiry, and other humanistic outcomes during design-centric inquiry. Implications on integrated STEM curriculum design and contributions to the STEM education literature on the potential diverse affordances of different centricities of STEM curriculum are discussed.

This article presents findings from the document analysis of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) lesson plans written and enacted in Southeast Asian classrooms aimed at providing integrative learning experiences for students. The authors argue that the culture of STEM education is embodied in teacher-designed STEM lesson plans or cultural apparatuses. The authors applied Sewell’s theory of culture to unpack the cultural embodiments (physical and abstract elements) embedded in six STEM lesson plans comprising lesson schedules, worksheets, and handouts. The findings showed that certain categories of culture were more evident in specific components of a STEM lesson package. The article contributes to the relatively nascent literature that, to date, has not closely examined teacher-designed integrated STEM curricula using a cultural lens. The study also has implications for STEM teachers to consider making cultural embodiments and practices more visible during their lesson planning and framing of STEM curriculum.

This article reports on the survey findings of a study on the STEM leadership of 134 STEM middle school educators (118 teachers and 16 principals) in Thailand who led in STEM curriculum writing and teaching in their schools. The data were analysed using Rasch analysis of three constructs, namely, their views about STEM teaching, STEM capital and self-empowerment to teach STEM lessons. The findings showed that the educators generally responded positively to the three constructs. They thought that STEM should be integrated and could potentially stand alone as an independent discipline. The teachers wished for more resources and had the support of colleagues. The teachers lacked confidence in STEM teaching. Implications for specific areas of support, especially the forming of STEM professional learning communities to support the teachers, are suggested.

The Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE) encourages teachers to engage in continual professional development to keep abreast of the latest developments in research that inform teaching, learning, and assessment. Teachers can participate in formal and informal programmes to upgrade their knowledge and practices inside and outside classroom teaching. This book chapter focuses on the repertoire of opportunities available to Singapore science teachers to support them in their progression into established professionals. Besides short-term courses, obtaining a Master’s degree is yet another way to build the professional capacity of the teaching workforce. Investing time to pursue a Master’s degree requires commitment and, more importantly, support from the school leaders and MOE. In this chapter, we show how different routes to obtaining a Master’s degree and the different funding sources available to them. Bespoked professional development for teachers also come in the form of research partnerships that empowers teachers more than mere participation. Here, we describe the different projects that science teachers have embarked on to gain firsthand experience in research. Action research is popular among science teachers and has created opportunities for them to present at professional meetings such as conferences. In summary, this book chapter offers insights into how the Singapore science teaching fraternity builds up its human capabilities through committing time, effort, and many other resources into engaging teachers in research to support their evidence-based practices. In the process, these science teachers progressively develop into established professionals.

Singapore students’ outstanding performance in international benchmark tests such as PISA and TIMSS has attracted attention from all sectors of education. The PISA and TIMSS mathematics and science results have been extrapolated to imply successful STEM education as these two disciplines are core subjects in most school systems around the world. However, the local and international STEM community remains divided in our understanding of STEM and STEM education. In this chapter, we shed some insights on our understanding of this acronym and provide an overview of STEM education in Singapore. Based upon our understanding of STEM, we show how we have used it to inform our work at our STEM education research centre, the Multi-centric Education Research and Industry STEM Centre at the National Institute of Education (meriSTEM@NIE). We also describe the work of the Science Centre Singapore and the Ministry of Education in catalyzing STEM education in secondary schools. Last, we describe two specialized, independent schools in Singapore that are similar to the elite, specialized STEM schools in the United States. In the final section of this chapter, we raise four key issues and challenges which STEM education stakeholders have to confront as STEM education in Singapore continually takes shape and form.

STEM education, when perceived as integrated learning that encompasses knowledge, skills and practices of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, points to a need to re-examine ways of classification of school subjects and learning. Consequently, dilemmas related to integrated STEM education arise. School leaders are faced with the task to organize teams to address issues such as the ownership of STEM, identity issues such as STEM teacher or teacher of STEM subjects, evaluation of STEM programs and resources to support STEM education. The unique characteristics of integrated disciplines demand leaders who understand the unique characteristics and demands of each discipline and to apply them to build a synergistic platform to magnify the similarities and harness the differences for learning. In this paper, we present an argument for STEM leadership to focus on building STEM teachers’ agency, identity and sense of belonging to a community. These three aspects are important for meaningful planning, enactment and sustainability of STEM programs since teachers’ beliefs, intentions, actions and empowerment are known to be instrumental in the success of many educational reforms.

Science centres are informal learning spaces embedded with artefacts embodying mediational affordances. This exploratory and small-scale mixed methods study juxtaposes eye-tracking technologies and qualitative interviews to examine how visitors to a gallery navigated this space and interacted with different artefacts. A total of 15 visitors to the science centre gallery, Energy Story, participated in the study. The findings revealed inconclusive results about the directionality of their navigation. The mediational affordances of the artefacts, as interpreted from the interactive elements and interaction of the visitors and interviews, suggested that it was better to distribute the mediational affordances across a few artefacts in an exhibit rather than have one artefact embody several affordances. The concept of “mediational threshold” was suggested as a topic for future study. The findings contributed to the academic literature on eye-tracking studies at science centres. They also provided ideas for science centre curators and teachers who bring students with diverse learning needs to this mediational space.

This paper examines the pedagogical practices in three case studies of elementary science lessons that took place in classrooms or laboratories to make connections to the discourse about inclusivity in science teaching. Using the Singapore Teaching Practice as a reference, we analyzed the pedagogical practices enacted during three lessons where specific intervention strategies were undertaken during the lessons to address the needs of students with dyslexia. Using event-oriented inquiry, nine (including one emergent) pedagogical practices were adapted by the science teachers. The findings also suggested differences in the outcomes from enacting the same pedagogical practices in different teaching situations. This study contributes to the literature by offering a situated definition of ‘pedagogical practices’, a dynamic construct in the existing literature, in the context of inclusive education. Suggestions on ways to adapt the nine pedagogical practices to enhance the reflexivity of teachers in inclusive science teaching are offered.

The prevalence and growing necessity for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) has resulted in many Singaporean schools developing and implementing STEM-based educational programmes. However, due to the novelty of an interdisciplinary STEM programme, few evaluation studies on the effectiveness of such programmes in influencing students’ engagement and aspiration towards STEM have been reported in the literature. STEM capital was used to assess the effectiveness of a particular STEM applied programme that many government schools in Singapore implement. The constructs used were students’ views about STEM lessons, students’ attitudes towards STEM, self-concept in learning STEM, construction of STEM identities, and career decisions in STEM. An online survey with 10 items per construct was administered to students from 13 schools and a total of 151 students participated in the survey. Rasch analysis was then performed on the survey results. Based on the results, although students have positive attitudes towards the applicability and necessity of STEM in the society, students are disinclined towards problem-solving and expressed low STEM self-concept. This could affect the formation of students’ identity in STEM as they perceive themselves to be passive learners rather than active contributors of STEM, thus potentially affecting students’ individual interest and continual engagement in STEM. Based on our findings, future research can focus on improving STEM learning centred around problems. Also, teachers and STEM programme providers can be trained to help develop students’ self-concept in regard to STEM.