Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Education

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enhance students’ mental readiness for SDL. Moreover, the school also revises its school-based reward scheme to enhance students’ reflection on SDL, “mindfulness” and appreciation, and invites class teachers and parents to participate in the evaluation. During the process, students are able to understand and reflect on their own learning and developmental needs from different perspectives, and make improvement accordingly, demonstrating their capacity of self-understanding and attitude towards active learning.

Adopting multiple strategies to encourage students to develop self-learning habits at various levels

The school employs strategies like e-learning, note-taking and the “junior teachers” scheme to enable students to bring into play their SDL capabilities in the three areas of knowledge enrichment, organisation of what is learnt and peer learning. Regarding knowledge enrichment, e-learning platforms are effectively employed in the subjects of Science and Biology to help students prepare for lessons and consolidate their prior knowledge. Examples include uploading of videos and provision of websites to facilitate students’ better understanding of the topics. For Physics, short videos about students’ common misunderstanding of the subject content are uploaded to help students clarify concepts and revise what has been learnt. Through e-learning, students effectively prepare for lessons, extend what they have learnt in lessons, and gradually develop SDL habits. In the aspect of organising what is learnt, JS students use learning tools, such as concept maps, charts and tables, to organise the key learning points in class, and then compile their personalised notes.

As for peer learning, teachers assign students as “junior teachers” to explain some topics to their fellow schoolmates in Physics lessons, and, through the use of daily life examples and important concepts of Physics, to elucidate the learning content. Teachers also arrange peer assessment for students to comment on the performance of the “junior teachers”, thereby helping students improve their learning through peer assessment and exerting their abilities in SDL.

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set up committees designated to promote STEM education. These committees co-ordinate tasks relating to the organisation of activities, allocation of resources and professional development of teachers. Examples of these tasks include co-ordinating relevant subject panels to organise STEM education-related activities and deploying resources for the purchase of equipment to encourage students to participate in activities on STEM education.

Schools with more comprehensive planning are able to strengthen cross-KLA or cross-subject collaboration, and systematically incorporate the elements of STEM education into the school curriculum and LWL activities. They also introduce external professional support and professional exchanges across schools to promote a culture of sharing among teachers.

 Regarding implementation strategies, schools usually organise learning activities based on the topics of a KLA or subject and integrate relevant learning elements of other KLAs or subjects into them. For example, a secondary school has arranged a hands-on Science activity of making water filters for the unit of “water”, letting students choose the materials suitable for the production in the learning context. At the same time, learning elements of other KLAs or subjects, such as the calculation of cost, measurement of light transmittance of water samples and safe use of the hot melt glue guns, are integrated into the activity.

Such a learning process provides students with the opportunities to integrate and apply their knowledge and skills across different subjects, and helps develop their generic skills.

Compared with previous years, more schools now implement cross-curricular project learning to promote STEM education. For example, some primary schools conduct project learning on the theme of science, allowing students to apply what they have learnt in lessons to make landing devices, thereby enhancing their creativity, collaboration and problem-solving skills. In addition, elements of coding are also incorporated into the curriculum of quite a number of schools to develop students’ computational thinking and allow them to apply coding to tackle problems encountered at home or in daily life.

 To promote STEM education, schools often organise diversified LWL activities, such as Activity Day/Week on STEM Education, robot-making and exhibitions, to enhance students’ interest in learning. To enrich students’ learning experiences, schools also arrange advanced training for students who are more interested or demonstrate higher ability in STEM education and nominate them to take part in competitions outside school, to help them reach their full potential and broaden their horizons. Overall, schools mainly implement STEM education through cross-KLA or cross-subject collaboration in the planning of LWL activities, whereas there is less co-ordination and collaboration at the curriculum level.

 When assessing students’ learning performance, schools tend to examine the quality of finished products and students’ level of involvement in the learning activities. Only a few

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schools adopt diversified modes of assessment, such as student presentations and lesson observations, to understand students’ performance in different aspects such as learning motivation and interest, application of knowledge and skills across different disciplines, as well as creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving skills. Schools with better performance allow students to evaluate their own performance in knowledge, skills, and attitudes, which is a way to cultivate students’ power of reflection; or employ assessment forms that cover knowledge, skills and attitudes to evaluate students’ learning.

 In sum, in evaluating the effectiveness of STEM education, most schools set students’ level of involvement and interest in learning as the assessment criteria, or go further to put more weight on the learning outcomes like the finished products than on the generic skills demonstrated by students in the process of inquiry. A few schools with better performance can appropriately review their work and conclude their experience in a timely manner, making good use of students’ learning performance as evidence for evaluating work effectiveness and thus providing feedback on planning. Schools should focus on the objectives of school-based STEM education, understand the learning progress of students in terms of knowledge, skills, and attitudes, and review holistically the work effectiveness of promoting STEM education.

Exemplars

Systematically planning and promoting STEM education

In the previous development cycle, the school has established a STEM education committee to be responsible for developing the school-based curriculum, co-ordinating activities and letting students participate in competitions. To implement STEM education in all year levels, a school-based curriculum has been developed with General Studies as its backbone, while appropriate topics are selected and systematically integrated with the relevant learning elements of Mathematics and the school-based Computer curriculum. For example, in teaching the topic of “Sea, Land and Air Transportation” in Primary 3 General Studies, an activity for students to make airboats is organised. The activity starts with daily life situations as lead-ins to let students discover the problems, and stimulate their interest in learning. Subsequently, students are encouraged to apply knowledge across subjects to make real objects by hand. Taking part in the activity helps foster students’ creativity and problem-solving skills. To further promote STEM education, the school adopts it as the major concern in the current development cycle and aims for more systematic planning and implementation. The school incorporates the elements of coding into the school-based Computer curriculum, allowing students to employ related knowledge to carry out activities on STEM education, with the aim of developing their

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computational thinking skills. Teachers actively participate in external training courses and, through practices and exchanges of professional views, keep on reviewing and refining the school-based curriculum to promote STEM education. Moreover, different subject panels also try to arrange learning activities that align with STEM education, such as the making of string telephones in Music and the use of heart rate monitors in Physical Education to assess one’s physical conditions when exercising. The school succeeds in delivering STEM education step by step, starting with the implementation by the General Studies core group members, then gradually extending it to all General Studies teachers, and later to teachers of other subjects.

Catering for learner diversity and providing students with hands-on and minds-on learning opportunities in authentic situations through STEM education

The school has set up a committee to co-ordinate STEM education-related work with comprehensive planning and clear objectives, and attaches importance to catering for learner diversity in the promotion of STEM education. The school has set aside a STEM education period for creative science and technology for Secondary 1 classes, providing students with rich learning content and choices of various themes for scientific inquiry as well as effectively catering for their different interests. The themes of scientific inquiry integrate both aspects of theory and practice. Apart from community visits for inspiring students to apply science and technology to help others, there are also opportunities for students to engage in hands-on and minds-on activities. For example, designing a “smart food bag”, which has a coded programme installed in it to make sound notifications when the food is about to expire, for visually impaired people, so that the user will not mistakenly eat expired food. To develop the potential of the more able students, the school takes part in the Enriched IT Programme and designs relevant enrichment courses to strengthen students’ computational thinking and problem-solving skills.

The school also optimises the use of the funding for the plan and strives to arrange for students at all year levels to participate in external competitions. Individual students have performed excellently and achieved brilliant results in international and territory-wide competitions.