| STEM is an abbreviation for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. Integrative STEM education aims to anchor the core ideas which belong the field of STEM into a real attractive problem context, adopt student-centered teaching methods which is driven by problem solving, and support students’mathematics and\or science learning, help students to get the engineering design procedure and\or technological skills. It can also help students to understand the relationship among disciplines by displaying integration among disciplines in problem solving, and know the value of disciplines, and develop the 21st century skills and positive attitude to the STEM.The background and main goal of STEM education are similar to those of engineering higher vocational education. For mathematical education, STEM education not only can guarantee the students’ mathematical performance, but also improve the students’mathematical attitude, promote the understanding of the relationship between mathematics and engineering, and make the mathematics education can service students’ engineering learning.Our research is based on STEM education as the Guiding ideology and the design research as methodological guideline, learned from the "formative research". After construction of original teaching mode, iterative implementation and modifying three times, we obtain a stable feasible and effective teaching mode for mathematical education of engineering high vocational education (named "ste-M-hve" teaching mode). One of main purposes of our research is to provide a new idea to combine integrated STEM education and our country’s higher vocational education, as well as improve STEM education research in higher vocational education.Focusing on the main question of "how to construct a mathematics teaching modes for higher vocational engineering education under integrated STEM education?", our research divides into three main parts:Firstly, we propose the original teaching mode which is based on the integrated STEM education and mathematics education of higher vocational education in China.The prototype is based on the connotation of integrated STEM education which includes four core elements and 11 principles of integrated STEM teaching which are analyzed in the literature review, five steps of STEM teaching in project-based learning and seven stages of engineering design process. Considering the teaching goal and restriction of higher vocational mathematics education, we state the teaching mode prototype from four aspects which includes the guiding ideology, teaching goal, operation steps, implementation condition and matters needing attention.Secondly, by modifying teaching mode prototype by the feedback of iterative teaching, we obtain a stable and feasible teaching mode.According to the design research methodological guidance, we found a higher vocational college of construction, and designed and implement the mathematics teaching after prototype with the helping of the relevant engineering professional teachers. By analyzing the teaching videos, pretest, interim test, posttest and the interview with teachers or students related to iteration teaching (about 3 weeks per iteration), the researcher revise the teaching mode prototype. Main modifications includes semantic misunderstandings, the time and order of the teaching process.Thirdly, to evaluate the effects of teaching mode.Thanks to the goals of higher vocational mathematics education and integrated STEM education, we evaluated the teaching effects from three aspects:mathematical achievement, mathematics attitude and the "others". The mathematical achievement and mathematics attitude is valued quantitatively by pretest and posttest. By pretest, a classes was chosen carefully as a comparative classes (teaching by traditional mode). Then, math scores of intervention class is compared transversely (with that of comparative class), and mathematics attitude of intervention class is compared horizontally (with that of comparative classes) and vertically (with intervention class before teaching). Moreover, these results coincide with the performance in activities and interviews. "Others" stands for engineering design procedure, the engineering thinking, part of the 21st century skills, interdisciplinary study, and so on. Since each aspect is difficult to establish evaluation criteria, the connotation of the "other" is determined by qualitative analysis, based on the performance of students in activities and interviews.Our main result is to construct a stable feasible and effective teaching mode for engineering in higher vocational mathematics education which meets the philosophy of STEM education (named ste-M-hve teaching mode).The stability and feasibility of ste-M-hve teaching mode is improved and satisfied by three iterated activities. Effectiveness of ste-M-hve teaching mode is measured by mathematical attitude, mathematical scores and "others." In fact, after three rounds of teaching implementation, mathematics attitude of the students in intervention class in "value" and "commitments" increases significantly, while there is no significant improvement in the "consciousness" and "perception". But compared with that in comparative classes, students of intervention class have significant advantages in all four dimensions of mathematics attitude. On the aspect of mathematical scores, intervention class is significantly better than comparative class, which has similar initial performance, in the understanding of concepts and applications both, versus there is no significant difference of computing between them. By activity performance and interviews, ste-M-hve teaching mode promotes the students on engineering design procedure, engineering thinking, technology, and the understanding among disciplines.The key result of our research is the construction of a feasible and stable ste-M-hve teaching mode. Roughly speaking, it includes six teaching periods, which are creation of engineering context by teacher, analyzing main question and obtaining the first proposal by students, abstracting into mathematical context by teacher, rethinking and improving their first proposal by students, extending the mathematical contents— both mathematical concept, knowledge and application by teacher, finally exhibition and rethinking the whole project by students. The second, third and fourth periods may be a circulation in the practice of ste-M-hve teaching mode.According to the questionnaire, teaching and learning analyzing in classroom, interviews and knowledge testing, ste-M-hve teaching mode improves both students’ ability to gain mathematical concept and knowledge and students’attitude toward mathematics. Precisely, Experimental class performed better with signification difference than control class with respect to the mathematical concept and application, while there is no signification difference between experimental class and control class with respect to the mathematical computations. Moreover, it turns out that ste-M-hve teaching mode may improve students’ability on engineering design procedure, engineering cogitation, and technology and so on. |
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