There is a need to arm students with noncognitive, or 21st Century, skills to prepare them for a more STEM-based job market. As STEM schools are created in a response to this call to action, research is needed to better understand how exemplary STEM schools successfully accomplish this goal. This conversion mixed method study analyzed student work samples and teacher lesson plans from seven exemplary inclusive STEM high schools to better understand at what level teachers at these schools are engaging and developing student 21st Century skills. We found of the 67 lesson plans collected at the inclusive STEM high schools, 50 included instruction on 21st Century skills. Most of these lesson plans designed instruction for 21st Century skills at an introductory level. Few lesson plans encouraged multiple 21st Century skills and addressed higher levels of those skills. Although there was not a significant difference between levels of 21st Century skills by grade level, there was an overall trend of higher levels of 21st Century skills demonstrated in lesson plans designed for grades 11 and 12. We also found that lesson plans that lasted three or more days had higher levels of 21st Century skills. These findings suggest that inclusive STEM high schools provide environments that support the development of 21st Century skills. Yet, more can be done in the area of teacher professional development to improve instruction of high levels of 21st Century skills.

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Developing student 21st Century skills in selected exemplary inclusive STEM high schools

Bu calismanin amaci, proje tabanli (PJT) fen, teknoloji, muhendislik ve matematik (STEM) egitiminin, meslek lisesi ogrencilerinin akademik basarilarina ve mesleki ilgilerine etkisini tespit etmektir. Arastirmada deneme oncesi modellerden, tek grup on test - son test deseni kullanilmistir. Arastirmanin katilimcilarini, meslek lisesi mobilya bolumu 11. sinif, 18 ogrenci olusturmustur. Arastirmada nicel veri toplama araclari kullanilmistir. Nicel veri toplama araclari olarak, ogrencilere “STEM Basari Testi” ve “Mesleki Ilgi Testi” on test – son test olarak uygulanmistir. Calismada, basari testi ve mesleki ilgi testlerinden elde edilen veriler, SPSS 16.0 programinda non-parametrik Wilcoxon isaretli siralar testi kullanilarak analiz edilmistir. Calisma sonunda, derste uygulanan STEM-PJT egitiminin ogrencilerde akademik basariyi anlamli duzeyde artirdigi ve mesleki ilgiyi olumlu yonde etkiledigi tespit edilmistir.

/pdf/impacts-of-the-project-based-pbl-science-technology-2cf9sibk4i.pdf

Impacts of the project based (PBL) science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education on academic achievement and career interests of vocational high school students

Software engineers must be able to manage complex projects, so that skills such as teamwork, leadership or initiative are critical to their successful development. Because of this, it is fundamental that the learning of software engineering as an academic discipline provides solid links between theory and practice. Educational frameworks such as those derived from the European Higher Education Area state that student-centered approaches are a useful tool for achieving these objectives. In this context, we present a project-based learning (PBL) experience report in a software engineering program of a Spanish university. The experience is based on the formation of small heterogeneous teams, which face the initial phases of a software methodology during the development of a project close to a real one. Through a strategy of role rotation and documentation transfer, all students perform different tasks and face different challenges throughout the project. Summative assessment is also adopted, considering not only teacher ratings but also students' peer assessment. The results prove the positive effect of using PBL to improve the training of students in acquiring different skills as future software engineers.

A Project-Based Learning Approach for Enhancing Learning Skills and Motivation in Software Engineering

Balancing theory and practice is a recurring challenge in Software Engineering (SE) education. However, the curriculum guidelines of the ACM/IEEE and Brazilian Computer Society emphasize the need of providing students with sufficient practical experiences for the development of competences expected for SE professional. Student-centered and learn-by-doing approaches, such as Project-Based Learning (PBL), have been advocated as suited for the development of competences. These approaches aim to promote higher motivation for the learner, a more active role in the learning process, and better learning in the application level. The goal of this paper is to evaluate the students' perception on the adoption of PBL in SE education. To achieve this goal, we performed a long-term study spanning for about 2 years. This study includes a survey to collect responses of 32 undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory SE course that used PBL. We compare the results to the responses of 17 students who participated in a SE course with similar syllabus but with a traditional teacher-centered learning method (non-PBL). Our results show a positive reception of the PBL method, and an increased perception of the contribution of a practical software development assignment in learning specific SE topics in the context of the PBL course, in comparison to a non-PBL method.

Students Perception on the use of Project-Based Learning in Software Engineering Education

This paper presents a reflection on the results of an experimental curricula design which combined short-term project-oriented research and project-based learning in the field of electrical engineering and renewable energy. The experiment was based on the application of the Project-Based Learning methodology. The problem to be solved arose from a local company and was carried out at a master level in the Polytechnic Institute of Braganca in Portugal. This experiment aimed to contribute to the innovation and modernization of educational projects of professionally oriented programmes in higher education institutions. It also demonstrated some of the advantages and challenges of learning innovation. Feedback from the students was encouraging but the results of this experiment mainly pointed to the need that everyone must be prepared for change. The study contributes to understanding both why and how we need to foster educational shift in electrical engineering to educate students and enhance their engineering skills for the twenty-first century.

Innovative learning in engineering education: Experimenting with short-term project-oriented research and project-based learning

This paper presents the “Multi-Role Project” method (MRP), a broadly applicable project-based learning method, and describes its implementation and evaluation in the context of a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) course. The MRP method is designed around a meta-principle that considers the project learning activity as a role-playing game based on two projects: a learning project and an engineering project. The meta-principle is complemented by five principles that provide a framework to guide the working practices of student teams: distribution of responsibilities; regular interactions and solicitations within the team; anticipation and continuous improvement; positive interdependence and alternating individual/collective work; and open communication and content management. This paper presents the implementation of MRP in a course teaching software engineering, UML language, and project management. The results show that MRP helped the course's students to acquire important professional knowledge and skills, experience near-real-world professional realities, and develop their abilities to work both in teams and autonomously.

Multi-Role Project (MRP): A New Project-Based Learning Method for STEM

Determining student motivation within the context of Learning Analytics is fundamental for academic students to realize their educational goals. We aim to perceive the student’s motivation state at a high level of abstraction and act accordingly to deal with motivation issues. We investigate how Model-Driven Engineering paradigms capture the essence of a motivation domain and provide deep automation in stimulating students’ tasks. In this paper, first, we propose a Conceptual Modeling Approach that provides a unified environment in which all dimensions of students’ motivation are explicitly defined. Secondly, a guideline, allows educational stakeholders to perceive the states of change in students’ motivation. Third, the issue of student motivation is addressed by making a mechanism that stimulates students. Finally, to stress our approach and to prove how it is useful, we present a global usage scenario for our system called Hafezni. Sixteen Master’s students of the computer science department of the Ibn Khaldoun University of Algeria participated in the experiment. Results showed that our approach allows educational actors to perceive the motivational state of the student. The Hafezni mobile app is useful according to learners and educational stakeholders. Finally, the student motivation makes sense on the causality of failure/success with an acceptable percentage of correctly classified instances increased from 69.23% to 96.13%. 

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10639-022-11091-8.pdf

Goal-oriented student motivation in learning analytics: How can a requirements-driven approach help?

Many stakeholders in higher education develop with time. In this paper, we propose a new typ e of platform, called a Teaching Content Management System (TCMS). Such platforms are intended for instructors to hel p them produce teaching specifications and quality te aching designs. We first of all present drivers of change that currently affect universities and we discuss s ome specific aspects of education in higher educati on. We then derive a set of support requirements for instr uctors and provide a services design that TCMS should comply with.

https://www-lisic.univ-littoral.fr/publis/1369387545.pdf

Omar Talbi

Papers

Multi-Role Project (MRP): A New Project-Based Learning Method for STEM

Goal-oriented student motivation in learning analytics: How can a requirements-driven approach help?

Towards A Support System For Course Design