Huang Biyun, Jong Morris Siu-Yung, King Ronnel B, Chai Ching-Sing, Jiang Michael Yi-Chao
Centre for Learning Sciences and Technologies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Department of Curriculum and Instruction, Faculty of Education, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Front Psychol. 2022 Jul 6;13:903252. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.903252. eCollection 2022.
STEM education has been regarded as an important educational initiative for cultivating students' twenty-first century skills. The present work aimed to explore ways to promote students' twenty-first century skills through an integrated STEM-based curriculum. Specifically, we designed and implemented an 8-week crossover program of STEM and community service education. In this program, students learned about STEM domain knowledge and community service issues. They then applied the knowledge to solve authentic problems faced by Hong Kong community-housing residents from disadvantaged groups. A mixed-method approach was employed to evaluate the effectiveness of the program in enhancing students' twenty-first century skills and attitudes, including (i) creative thinking, (ii) collaboration, (iii) perseverance, as well as their (iv) STEM career interests. The research participants were 121 secondary students from a government-subsidized school. The quantitative results showed that the participants' creative thinking, collaboration, and perseverance improved alongside their STEM career interests. These findings were further supported by the data gathered through focus-group interviews. This study provides theoretical and practical insights into the integration of STEM education with community service learning.
STEM教育被视为培养学生21世纪技能的一项重要教育举措。本研究旨在探索通过基于STEM的综合课程来提升学生21世纪技能的方法。具体而言，我们设计并实施了一个为期8周的STEM与社区服务教育交叉项目。在这个项目中，学生学习STEM领域知识和社区服务问题。然后，他们运用这些知识去解决香港社区住房中弱势群体居民所面临的实际问题。我们采用了混合方法来评估该项目在提升学生21世纪技能和态度方面的有效性，这些技能和态度包括：（i）创造性思维、（ii）协作能力、（iii）毅力，以及他们的（iv）STEM职业兴趣。研究参与者是一所政府资助学校的121名中学生。定量研究结果表明，参与者的创造性思维、协作能力和毅力随着他们的STEM职业兴趣一同得到了提升。通过焦点小组访谈收集到的数据进一步支持了这些发现。本研究为STEM教育与社区服务学习的整合提供了理论和实践见解。
