Page 95 - Innovative Professional Development Methods and Strategies for STEM Education

Systematic Support for STEM Pre-Service Teachers

Current K-12 STEM Professional Development: What Is Missing?

Focusing on STEM content knowledge and STEM pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) has been the
norm of STEM professional development. Research has pointed that it is necessary for STEM profes-
sional development to cultivate both content knowledge and PCK in STEM. Leaving suggestions from
research aside, there are practical reasons for STEM professional development to focus on STEM content
knowledge and STEM PCK: (1) the fast changing nature of STEM disciplines and (2) the fact that K-12
teachers are not well prepared for STEM teaching. An estimated 10–20% of science and math teachers in
U.S. middle and high schools are not certified in their subjects—nor did they major in a related field in
college (CADRE, 2011). While low course-taking in science and mathematics by elementary and middle
school pre-service teachers has been identified by many states as a major factor in poor teacher quality
and poor learning outcomes, engineering is not a discipline traditionally taught in K-12 classrooms and
K-12 teachers, elementary teachers in particular, are not familiar with Design, Engineering, and Technol-
ogy (DET) (Hsu, Cardella, Purzer & Diaz 2010; Yasar et al, 2006). Avery and Reed (2013) postulated
that professional development was a means to prepare STEM educators to “effectively integrate various
instructional approaches” (p. 55).
K-12 STEM teachers are not well prepared in their STEM content knowledge, let alone well pre-
pared pedagogically to teach STEM to their students. Professional development, consequently, becomes
a useful means to provide STEM teachers with training to enrich their STEM content knowledge and
their PCK in STEM. PCK, first proposed by Shulman (1986), refers to knowledge of how to make the
subject comprehensible to learners based on understandings of the learners’ characteristics, interests,
abilities, as well as their conceptions and content-related difficulties. With growing appreciation of the
importance of STEM PCK in improving STEM teaching in the K-12 community, STEM professional
programs typically cover specific STEM content integrated with pedagogy seeking to promote a deep
understanding of the subject matter along with appropriate pedagogical practices.
Although focusing on STEM content and pedagogy has long become the common practice in STEM
professional development, the question remains: Are STEM content knowledge and STEM PCK enough
to enable STEM teachers to help their students develop an interest in STEM and motivate them to learn
STEM in college and even pursue it as a career? It is true that enhanced STEM content knowledge and
PCK in STEM would improve teachers’ ability to make STEM content comprehensible to their stu-
dents. But far more than this needs to be done to reach the ultimate goal of K-12 STEM education of
cultivating a STEM-proficient workforce and a STEM-literate citizenry to increase the United States’
competitiveness in the global economy. The problem with the current STEM professional development
practice of focusing mainly on STEM content and STEM PCK is centering on STEM teachers’ teaching
and knowledge needs, dismissing students as passive knowledge receptors and inactive agents in the
STEM learning process.
The authors of the present chapter call for a new K-12 STEM professional development paradigm
that treats students as an active agent that can wield influence on the learning process and affect the
learning results. This new paradigm sets on an understanding about the reciprocal relationship between
teachers and students in the learning process. Teaching as a practice of human improvement indicates
that teaching “practitioners depend on their clients to achieve any results” (Cohen, 1988, p. 57). Labaree
(2000) elaborated this idea when discussing the nature of teaching by comparing teachers with surgeons
and lawyers: “A surgeon can fix the ailment of a patient who sleeps through the operation, and a lawyer
can successfully defend a client who remains mute during the trial, but success for a teacher depends

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