Abstract
The purposes of this study were to integrate imagination and STEAM education to construct a special topic course on wearable devices for pets for technology senior high school students studying electronic science; to explore the impacts of the learning process on students’ imagination, STEAM competences and satisfaction with learning effectiveness; and to investigate the integration of imagination into STEAM education. This study adopted the design research method and took 40 students in the third year of a special topic course in electronic science at a technology senior high school as the research subjects. The students were randomly divided into 8 groups, and teaching activities were carried out for 18 weeks. This study used questionnaire and documentary analysis methods to carry out peer evaluation, pretests, posttests and student self-report surveys to collect qualitative and quantitative data for statistical analysis and cross-validation. In this study, a new integration model of imagination and STEAM is proposed. The design research method was employed to plan the iSTEAM course and design special topic activities about real-life issues so that the degree of integration of imagination into the STEAM special topic course and the quality of the students’ work were moderately positively correlated and highly positively correlated, respectively, with students’ application of their learning from various aspects of iSTEAM, which can significantly enhance their imagination, STEAM competences, and satisfaction with their learning effectiveness. The iSTEAM teaching model can help engineering educators develop and evaluate iSTEAM courses and learning activities and provides new contributions to and research directions for STEAM education.
Highlights
In 1989, the U.S began emphasizing STEM in its educational reform, advocating for interdisciplinary, integrated education that connects disciplines with practical skills (Lou et al 2011a, b)
Based on the research purpose and literature review, this study developed an iSTEAM course for technology senior high school students studying electronic science
Designing special topic activities based on real world issues helps integrate imagination with STEAM education
Summary
In 1989, the U.S began emphasizing STEM in its educational reform, advocating for interdisciplinary, integrated education that connects disciplines with practical skills (Lou et al 2011a, b). Based on mathematics and science, it is a discovery-oriented discipline concerned with solving practical problems with engineering or design methods, exploring the reestablishment of art education, and encouraging students to find creative solutions (Phelps et al 2018; Maeda 2013). Art adds a new dimension to STEM learning and inspires more young people to devote themselves to the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (Ozkan and Topsakal 2019). The educational orientation of STEAM learning is conducive to the precollege engineering education and interdisciplinary and integrated course learning of technology senior high school students (Gettings 2016), which is of great importance for development and research
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