The analyzing of science teachers perception of integrating STEM education into the national curriculum in Indonesia

Abstract

Nowadays, high school students encounter high technology problems in which they need 21st-century skills to give them the solution by learning STEM education that includes problem-solving, team working, creativity, innovation, critical thinking, and communication skills. On the other hand, STEM education in Indonesia is not as common as in the United States of America as a curriculum. Moreover, Indonesia has a National Curriculum which means that every school applies the same curriculum. This research aims to analyze how science teachers implement STEM education in their classes by using project-based learning and hands-on activities, and their knowledge and readiness to integrate STEM education into National Curriculum. The research used a descriptive method. The participants were collected by using purposive sampling, which are 82 participants who are high school science teachers. This research uses a web-based questionnaire to collect the data which contained two parts, such as demographic and issue part with four and twelve questions, respectively. The researcher found that most of the participants (63%) have applied project-based learning and hands-on activities for a quarter of their course content. Moreover, they gave problems to students for more than half of the courses to improve students^ problem-solving skills. The research also shows that the participants used authentic assessments, such as portfolios to evaluate students’ performance. Based on the results, most of them have already known and implemented STEM education in some of their learning processes. Even though STEM education is already on the National Curriculum, in fact, not every school knows and understands how to apply STEM in their classroom. Therefore, it is necessary to develop and improve the National Curriculum by integrating STEM education into the curriculum with all the stakeholder's support.