Page 96 - Innovative Professional Development Methods and Strategies for STEM Education

Systematic Support for STEM Pre-Service Teachers

heavily on the active cooperation of the student” (p.228). Labaree quoted Dewey (1933) that “There is
the same exact equation between teaching and learning that there is between selling and buying” (as
quoted in Labaree, 2000, p. 228), and pointed out that there is a reciprocal relationship between teach-
ers and students: “you can’t be a good salesperson unless someone is buying, and you can’t be a good
teacher unless someone is learning” (Labaree, 2000, p.228).
This reciprocal relationship reveals the importance of STEM teachers’ ability to enable their students
to feel motivated and willing to learn STEM in order to make real STEM learning happen. This ability
should be directly related to teachers’ ability to create authentic STEM learning experiences for their
students given the well-documented motivational benefits of authentic learning for students (e.g., Her-
rington & Oliver, 2000; Huang, 2002; Lombardi, 2007; Newmann & Wehlage, 1993). Adopting the four
types of authenticity (i.e., context authenticity, task authenticity, impact authenticity, and personal/value
authenticity) identified by Strobel and his colleagues (Strobel et al, 2013) as a theoretical framework,
this chapter proposes the authentic and sustainable four-pillar professional development model guiding
future STEM professional development efforts to cultivate STEM pre-service teachers’ ability to create
authentic STEM learning experience for students and to concurrently improve STEM pre-service teach-
ers’ STEM content knowledge and PCK in STEM.

New Paradigm of K-12 STEM Professional Development
and Authentic K-12 STEM Learning Experience

As proposed by the authors of this chapter, the new paradigm of STEM professional development em-
phasizes authentic learning experiences for K-12 students and treats cultivating teachers’ ability to create
authentic STEM learning experience as equally important as enhancing their STEM content knowledge
and PCK in STEM. Snape and Fox-Turnbull argued (2011) the necessity of “devising practical, adaptable
education programmes” (p. 67) which inspire students to develop understanding of their world through
authentic learning. Integrating the above three aspects (i.e., the ability to create authentic STEM learn-
ing experiences for K-12 students, STEM content knowledge, and PCK in STEM) into STEM training
is the new promising direction for future K-12 STEM professional development.
Although, as pointed out by Petragli (1998), authenticity has become the “desideratum of the Ameri-
can educational system” (p.10), the need still exists to define authenticity in the context of K-12 STEM
education. The authors of this chapter defined the meaning of authentic K-12 STEM learning based the
four types of authenticity (i.e., context authenticity, task authenticity, impact authenticity, and personal/
value authenticity) identified by Strobel and his colleagues (Strobel et al, 2013) (See Table 1).
Approaching K-12 STEM education from the lenses of the four types of authenticity, the K-12 STEM
education community would realize that, to allow K-12 students to develop an interest in STEM and
to prepare them for studying STEM in college and pursuing STEM as a career, authentic K-12 STEM
learning experience should: (1) help K-12 students develop an understanding of real world STEM careers;
(2) allow K-12 students to experience real world STEM applications to gain a personal understanding
of STEM impact; (3) scaffold K-12 students’ development of STEM knowledge and skills; and (4)
provide hands-on experience with real world STEM problems. These four aspects define the meaning
of authentic K-12 STEM learning.
In addition to applying the Vygotskian concept of the zone of proximal development (Vygotsky,
1978) in scaffolding K-12 students’ STEM knowledge and skill development, the authentic K-12 STEM
learning experience defined above emphasizes cultivating K-12 students’ motivation and interest in

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