Developing Culturally and Developmentally Appropriate Early STEM Learning Experiences

ABSTRACT

This special issue on early STEM education collects ten articles that present a series of studies covering topics about curriculum and pedagogy, teacher education and professional development, family environment, and inclusive education for enhancing young children’s STEM learning experiences. These collected studies have presented empirical evidence obtained from diverse cultural contexts, including Australia, Germany, Hong Kong, Mainland China, Singapore, and the United States. With varying designs and diversified approaches, these studies jointly present a vivid picture of the STEM world and may therefore provide some contributions to theoretical developments and practical improvements.

The acronym STEM was first coined by the United States’ federal government to refer to education in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (Breiner et al., 2012). Since then, STEM has become a ‘magic word’ receiving unprecedented attention from scholars, educators, policymakers all over the world (Weng & Li, 2020). As an interdisciplinary concept, STEM has highly prioritized integrating Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics into various disciplines to enhance students’ learning and experience. This concept and the associated campaigns might be a response to as well as a preparation for the fourth industrial revolution (Schwab, 2017), which features ubiquitous, mobile supercomputing, intelligent robots, self-driving cars, neuro-technological brain enhancements, and genetic editing. All these industrial changes are happening at exponential speed, thus thoroughly and systematically transforming our lives and societies. Therefore, many countries have launched and promoted early STEM education to embrace these challenges. Some of the established STEM programs include Big Math for Little Kids (Greenes et al., 2004), Building Blocks (Sarama & Clements, 2004), ScienceStart! Curriculum (French, 2004), and TangibleK Robotics Program (Bers et al., 2014; Sullivan & Bers, 2016). As the first collection of multidisciplinary and multinational studies on early STEM programs, this special issue endeavors to present the authentic, latest, STEM-relevant scenarios worldwide to address the fundamental two problems: where are we and where shall we go?

Early STEM Matters: where Are We?

This special issue was conceived to explore “those factors that clearly influence (positively or negatively) young learners’ abilities to make informed choices in authentic, problem-based, STEM-relevant scenarios and how those abilities have been identified, documented, and enhanced” (Li et al., 2019, p. 294). These factors arise in formal settings such as preschool environments and less formal settings such as home environments and include themes related to curriculum and pedagogy, teacher education and professional development, family environment, and inclusive education to enhance children’s STEM learning experiences. Thus, this special issue collects ten research articles to provide empirical evidence obtained from diverse cultural contexts, including Australia, Germany, Hong Kong, Mainland China, Singapore, and United States, intending to address the critical question: where are we in early STEM?

Early STEM Curriculum and Pedagogy

Hu et al. (2020) article, “‘Once upon a star’: A science education program based on personification storytelling in promoting preschool children’s understanding of astronomy concepts,” opens this special issue with a science education intervention study aiming to foster preschool children’s conceptual understanding of astronomy in Sydney, Australia. In this intervention study, personification storytelling was employed as the pedagogical approach that incorporates scientific concepts into stories and integrates hands-on activities and free drawing into early science learning. Based on Vygotsky’s sociocultural approach to examining children’s conceptual understanding, Hu et al. (2020) analyses of pre- and post-intervention interviews, teachers’ documents, and children’s work samples demonstrated the benefits of the nine-week science program for 24 children aged 4–5 years. Although using a pre-experimental design, this study showed the potential of using personification storytelling as an effective strategy to introduce abstract scientific concepts to young children.

In the second article, “Teacher’s role in fostering preschoolers’ computational thinking: An exploratory case study,” Wang et al. (2020) provide evidence from an exemplary teacher’s practice in scaffolding preschoolers’ computational thinking using an interactive programmable toy. As the first examination of young children’s learning associated with the development of computational thinking, this study focuses on investigating teachers’ scaffolding strategies using video analyses. The results revealed that a range of strategies was used by the teacher to support children’s development of computational thinking skills, including problem reformation/decomposition, systematic testing, debugging, modeling a positive attitude toward error, and encouraging communication and collaboration. As aligned with the first article, this paper presents a clear message that young children can learn abstract concepts and advanced process skills when teachers provide explicit instructions and scaffolding, as well as the necessary, useful STEM-related resources.

The third article, “Engineering play, mathematics, and spatial skills in children with and without disabilities,” reports findings from a study on children using engineering play with wooden unit blocks. The conceptualization of engineering play regards block building as a process of constructive design, which could be related to children’s mathematics and spatial skills. In the block play context, Gold et al. (2020) investigated the engineering play behaviors, mathematical knowledge (numeracy and geometry), and spatial horizontal rotational skills among 110 preschool children with and without disabilities. After controlling for demographic factors, results showed that children’s engineering play behaviors were significantly positively associated with their spatial skills among all children. In contrast, engineering play behaviors were only positively associated with geometry knowledge among children with disabilities. These results support the value of using engineering play with unit blocks for enriching early STEM experiences among all children – with and without disabilities. The researchers found that an inclusive education program involving engineering play supported the development of children’s domain-general social-cognitive functioning and the implementation of STEM curricula for all children.

The fourth article, “Mathematics learning opportunities in preschool: Where does the classroom library fit in?” highlights the last element of “STEM” – Mathematics. Stites et al. (2020) conducted two interrelated studies to survey the availability of math-themed books in preschool classroom libraries. The results from the online survey (N = 150) and in-depth interviews (N = 8) with preschool teachers indicated that there were significantly fewer math-themed books in the classroom libraries compared with other STEM disciplines. Therefore, as a popular locus for activities in early childhood settings, the classroom library should be used as an essential means of supporting children’s mathematical exposure and exploration. This article provides a novel perspective for promoting early STEM experiences in early childhood settings by transforming traditional learning centers to be more multifunctional and inclusive.

Teacher Education and Professional Development for Early STEM

As revealed in the previous studies, teachers play a crucial role in fostering preschool children’s learning in STEM domains. Early childhood teachers need to be equipped with the necessary knowledge in both content and pedagogy to lead high-quality STEM experiences for children (Early Childhood STEM Working Group, 2017).

The fifth article, “Exploring the relationships between scientific epistemic beliefs, science teaching beliefs and science-specific PCK among pre-service kindergarten teachers in China,” focuses on pre-service teachers’ science epistemic beliefs (SEB), science teaching beliefs (STB), and science-specific pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Wu et al. (2020) conducted their survey with 987 early childhood pre-service teachers randomly sampled from a teacher education institution in Mainland China. They found that SEB strongly predicted STB and science-specific PCK, while STB partially mediated the relationship between SEB and science-specific PCK. The findings provide some implications for teacher education to better prepare early STEM teachers.

The sixth article, “Evaluation of an online early mathematics professional development program for early childhood teachers,” evaluates the effects of an early math professional development (PD) program for in-service teachers. Sheridan and Wen (2020) assessed the impact of eight online PD courses, along with web-based resources (https://earlymathcounts.org/early-math-counts-series/), on teachers’ attitudes, confidence, beliefs, and knowledge in teaching early math. A subset of the participants (N = 95) took pre-and post-surveys, which focused on evaluating their learning outcomes, attitudes, and beliefs. The participants reported positive experiences using the online PD program, and their engagement in the program positively impacted their attitudes, confidence, beliefs, and knowledge in teaching early math. This finding implies that future efforts should be made to deliver and scale up PD of this nature for early STEM teachers.

Family and Early STEM Education Experiences

Early STEM education experiences in early care settings, such as home environments, play a vital role in young children’s learning and development. This special issue includes two articles that focus on the family’s role in early STEM learning and achievement.

In the seventh article, “The influence of parental educational involvement in early childhood on 4th-grade students’ mathematics achievement”, Cui et al., 2019) investigated whether parental involvement in early math learning and parental attitudes toward math and science influenced children’s math achievement in the 4^th grade using the database of TIMSS 2015 survey. They sampled 6,237 students from Singapore and 3,316 students from Hong Kong to conduct Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) analysis. The results indicated that parental involvement and attitudes had influenced children’s math achievement in the 4th grade. This finding implies that parental involvement should be promoted to support children’s early STEM learning at home.

In the eighth article, “Family cohesion facilitates learning-related behaviors and math competency at the transition to elementary school,” Niehues et al. (2020) also derived evidence from a large database to confirm the role of family climate in children’s early math learning experiences in Germany. They analyzed the data from the German National Education Panel Study (NEPS) and found that family cohesion in early childhood could indirectly affect children’s later math competency. This finding implies that the family’s emotional climate might play a part in shaping children’s early STEM learning experiences.

Early STEM for Children with Disabilities

In the ninth article, “STEM for Inclusive Excellence and Equity,” Clements et al. (2020) reviewed the evidence regarding the provision of developmentally appropriate STEM experiences to children with disabilities. They found that young children placed in less advantaged situations (i.e., poverty, minority, and disabilities) had fewer opportunities to access high-quality STEM learning experiences. The authors concluded the review by introducing a center to support inclusive STEM education for all children – STEM Innovation for Inclusion in Early Education (https://stemie.fpg.unc.edu/). This article has urged the field to improve the equity and inclusiveness of early STEM education.

New Technology, New STEM

The last article of this special issue, “An analysis of the nature of young students’ STEM learning in 3D technology-enhanced Makerspaces”, Forbes et al. (2020) investigated the learning processes and outcomes of using 3D design and printing technologies with Australian children aged 5–8 years. They established the triangulation of data methods and sources and analyzed the themes of teachers’ and students’ responses to the question: What is the nature of students’ learning and learning processes in technology-enhanced Makerspaces? The results indicated that the students had developed skills and understanding of digital technology, design thinking, problem-solving, critical thinking, collaboration, and communication. The finding implies that Makerspaces with 3D design and printing could promote young children’s STEM literacies.

Early STEM Matters: where Shall We Go?

The special issue aims to collect the latest world-leading studies to show what we have achieved in early STEM education. All the collected studies have jointly indicated that young children could be engaged in high-quality STEM learning experiences, as long as their teachers and parents provide them with the opportunities, resources, and support in a culturally and developmentally appropriate way. Based on the brief review of these articles, we would like to highlight some research gaps and suggest future directions to address the second question: where shall we go.

STEM Learning Links

STEM education involves at least one of the discipline areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. It involves creativity, which is also used in Arts and Design projects (McClure et al., 2017), as well as language and social skills when children are communicating and collaborating. Although Hu et al. (2020) and Stites et al. (2020) studies have linked science and mathematics to reading activities, more studies are needed to explore the connections between STEM and other learning domains for young children, as young children should learn and develop in an integrated, holistic manner. For example, future studies could explore how communication and collaboration can promote engagement in STEM learning and can influence children’s social-emotional development. The explicit interdependence between STEM and other domains is needed to advance the evidence-based design and implementation of early STEM education (French, 2004).

True or Quasi- Experiments?

Many studies in this special issue have presented good practices related to early STEM curriculum and pedagogy (Gold et al., 2020; Hu et al., 2020; Stites et al., 2020; Wang et al., 2020), as well as STEM PD programs designed for pre-service teachers (Sheridan & Wen, 2020). However, none of them had conducted true experiments or rigorous program evaluation to assess the effectiveness of these practices. Therefore, more true or quasi-experiments are needed to evaluate early STEM education programs, curricula, and pedagogical approaches, to provide a firm foundation for promoting and scaling up those practices that benefit children.

Home-based STEM Experiences

As shown in Cui et al. (2019) and Niehues et al. (2020) studies, family plays a crucial role in shaping children’s early STEM learning experiences, which leads to their future interest and attainment in STEM learning. While these macro-level investigations of the value of family engagement are valuable, the micro-environment of children’s home-based STEM experiences also deserves further studies. Therefore, the features and influences of home-based STEM experiences should be prioritized in the research agenda. In practice, parents need more guidance and support to optimize their attitudes toward STEM learning and increase their willingness to engage in young children’s STEM learning experiences.

Culturally Different Approaches to Early STEM Education

This special issue has collected studies from diverse cultural contexts; however, none of the studies has adopted a comparative perspective to examine the cross-cultural differences in supporting early STEM learning. Since “STEM education is not culturally neutral” (Early Childhood STEM Working Group, 2017, p. 2), cultural contexts and children’s cultural/racial backgrounds are likely to affect early STEM experiences. Hence, there is a need for researchers and teacher educators to develop and validate culturally appropriate approaches to early STEM education, and to be aware of possible biases and stereotypes that may hinder children’s learning and achievement in STEM. This will not only promote culturally appropriate approaches to early STEM learning but also contribute to a more inclusive and equal system of early STEM education.

Differentiated but Inclusive STEM for All

Aside from declaring their commitment to high-quality STEM education for children with and without disabilities (Clements et al., 2020), researchers and educators have also raised awareness of the importance of achieving this goal. Aligned with the recommendations of the Early Childhood STEM Working Group (2017), there is a need to articulate and distribute early STEM learning standards, guidelines, and supporting policies so that teacher educators could be aware of the tenets of ‘best practice’ and could evaluate and identify high-quality resources. This is particularly urgent because increasing STEM literacy in the population has been an important objective for many governments. This could only be achieved through an evidence-informed, effective early STEM education for all children, which requires sustainable efforts from and connections between researchers, policymakers, and educators.

Overall, this special issue is a small step toward the goal of building an inclusive society that advocates early STEM for all, with all of the contributors making significant research efforts to understand and support culturally and developmentally appropriate early STEM learning experiences. STEM itself should not be some children’s privilege; instead, it should be the ‘Noah’s Ark’ for all the children in the world to sail in the sea of the ‘fourth industrial revolution’ (Schwab, 2017).