Developing Integrated STEM Teacher Identity Using Guided Curation of K-12 Engineering Activities

Abstract

Abstract This qualitative study examines how guided curation develops practicing teachers’ task perception as a dimension of integrated STEM teacher identity. Task perception is defined as teachers’ beliefs about their roles and responsibilities as integrated STEM educators. Analysis of teachers’ (n = 22) guided curation assignments from a graduate STEM education course revealed how teachers perceived their roles and responsibilities as integrated STEM educators and potential challenges to integrating STEM. These beliefs included the importance of centering the engineering design process, encouraging collaborative problem solving, providing productive mistake-making opportunities, and connecting mathematics and engineering. Teacher educators’ adaptation of a freely available STEM lesson specification tool scaffolded the collection and analysis of curriculum resources. This adaptation was instrumental in developing task perception. Implications for building elementary teachers’ capacity to implement and sustain innovative integrated STEM instruction are offered.