Abstract
In this research, we explored the potential of using a research-based teaching and learning sequence to promote pupils’ engagement in practices that are coherent with those of real world mathematical and scientific activity. This STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematis) sequence was designed and implemented by pre-service teachers and science and mathematics education researchers with the aim of modeling the growth of a real population of rabbits. Results show explicit evidence of pupils’ engagement in relevant mathematical and scientific practices, as well as detailed descriptions of mathematical connections that emerged from those practices. We discuss how these practices and connections allowed the progressive construction of models, and the implications that this proposal may have for STEM task design and for the analysis of extra-mathematical connections.
Highlights
School STEM Education: ModelingSTEM activities are characterised by dealing with complex problems using, in an integrated manner, two or more of the disciplines which form the acronym STEM
Some studies indicate that the nature of the mathematical tools and systems of representation available to pupils determine the depth of learning about science ideas, since mathematical forms correspond to forms of understanding natural systems (Sherin [3]; DiSessa [4])
The results of the implementation of the teaching and learning sequence (TLS) show that the analysis of complex natural systems can favour the integration of mathematics and science, which coincides with the conclusions of various studies (Dickes and Sengupta [1]; Wilensky and Reisman [2])
Summary
School STEM Education: ModelingSTEM activities are characterised by dealing with complex problems using, in an integrated manner, two or more of the disciplines which form the acronym STEM. Some studies signal a positive effect of integration on both science and mathematics learning (Czerniak et al [6]), others report that such an effect is greater for scientific than for mathematical learning, indicating a difficulty in enhancing mathematics achievement in integrated contexts (Hurley [7]) This could be related to the fact that, by holding the concept of mathematics as a product, in many STEM education proposals mathematics is not integrated or connected with other STEM disciplines, and it is commonly portrayed as a set of aiding tools for science and engineering (Couso, Mora and Simarro [8]; Li and Shoenfeld [9]; English [10]). This is because integrative STEM (I-STEM) proposals quite often hide the singularity of each of the disciplines, and pupils cannot benefit from the richness of understanding their epistemic complementarity (Couso Mora and Simarro [8])
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