Mostem Öğretmen Kadrosu

STEM; as well as being an approach which is the abbreviation of the words Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics and covers these areas. STEM approach inevitably exists in pre-school education as it represents an education model which is inter-disciplinary and towards practice. The overall purpose of this study is to examine the applicability and effectiveness of the STEM approach for preschool education. Conducted in three stages, the study firstly focused on the fundamental prerequisites in terms of physical capacity and teacher skills and competencies required for a successful application of the STEM approach for preschool education. At the second stage, the focus was on the development of a trainer education program for the STEM method to be implemented for preschool education, implementation of the program, problems that arise during the implementation process and the solutions to address these problems. At the third stage, preschool teachers’ skills to develop STEM activities, implement such activities in a real classroom environment and manage the processes were examined. Additionally, the study also examined the impact of activities developed according to the STEM approach on cognitive processes, social product development, team work and presentation skills of the students. Research was based on the technical/scientific/collaborative model of action research. The study was conducted in a private school in Gaziantep during the 2017-2018 academic year with three preschool teachers and 57 preschool children. After a review of whether the school had suitable characteristics for the STEM approach, the prerequisites required for an implementation of the STEM approach were set out. Then a two-and-a-half-month long STEM trainer education program consisting of ten sessions (eight main sessions and two additional sessions) was developed and applied. Solution proposals were developed to address the issues that emerged during the implementation process. At the next stage, teachers that received trainer education implemented activities in the context of the STEM approach in their own classes under the mentorship of a researcher. Within this process, the extent to which teachers were able to transfer their STEM skills to an actual classroom environment as well as the problems that emerged during the process were identified and solution proposals were developed. At the last stage, the effectiveness of STEM activities on the children was examined. Various qualitative and quantitative data collection tools were used for purposes of the research, such as annual and monthly plans of the school, photos of the education environment, resumes of teachers, STEM activities developed by the teachers, Semi-Structured Interviews, the Information-Based Life Problem Rubric, the STEM Lesson Plan Rubric, an Assessment Test for Teachers, the STEM Trainer Education Evaluation Survey, the Cognitive Process: Engineering Rubric, the Social Product General Rubric, the Social Product: Team Work Rubric, the Semi-Structured Observation Form and Teacher Journals. Data obtained from qualitative data collection tools were subjected to descriptive and content analysis whereas data obtained from quantitative data collection tools were analyzed using the Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test and the Friedman Test in combination with the arithmetic mean, standard deviation, frequency and percentage calculations via the SPSS 23.0 Package Software. According to the research results, even though preschool teachers have a positive attitude towards the STEM approach in education, preschool education institutions are open to development in terms of technical, physical and human capacities to fully implement the STEM method. The study found that participants managed to transfer the skills and competences they acquired during the purpose-designed STEM trainer education to the classroom environment. Teachers were found to be lacking with regards to preparing Information-Based Life Problem Rubrics and lesson plans for the STEM. However, it was seen that the said deficiencies were properly addressed with the solution suggestions. Additionally, it was established that the implementation of in-class STEM activities had a positive and permanent effect on the social product development, team work, social product presentation and engineering skills of preschool students as well as their cognitive processes. As a result, we can conclude that the STEM approach can be implemented effectively for preschool education. The study also contains a set of recommendations for researchers, policy developers and practitioners. Keywords: STEM, STEM junior, pre school, STEM approach, action research