INTEGRATIVE STEM EDUCATION AS “BEST PRACTICE”

Abstract

In accordance with the conference theme—“Exploring Best Practice in Technology Design & Engineering Education”— I make a case in this paper for investigating “integrative STEM education” as a prospective best practice in technology education. I begin with an embellished operational definition of integrative STEM education and follow that with an extensive rationale for investigating the integrative STEM education pedagogical model as a technology education best practice. In the latter part of the paper I discuss the “design experiment” research methodology (Brown, 1992; Collins, 1992) and make the case that technology education researchers employ this methodology in their investigations of integrative STEM education. Design experiment methods are ideally suited to investigating innovative pedagogies and would benefit technology education by concurrently improving the integrative STEM education pedagogical model while generating new theories of technological learning, S, T, E, & M learning, and integrative STEM learning.