While the traditional curriculum divides school subjects into separate parts, the integrated curriculum assimilates, mixes, integrates and combines each curriculum in a meaningful method. The notion of the curriculum integration started being used in ...
While the traditional curriculum divides school subjects into separate parts, the integrated curriculum assimilates, mixes, integrates and combines each curriculum in a meaningful method. The notion of the curriculum integration started being used in full scale from the influence of the educational campaign of American Liberalism from the 1920s to the 1950 and has been alreday executed in the curriculums not only for infants or elementary school but also for middle school and university in the West.
STEAM is described the contents of relation of "science" with other subjects such as engineering, arts and mathematics in the curriculum goals according to the 2009 revised curriculum to improve integrate and creative thought. The 2009 revised curriculum suggests the necessity of integrated education.
This study established below research problems in order to suggest a new teaching and learning plan and examine the effects to the lower grades of elementary school through an assimilated approach of the 2007 revised curriculum.
First, what methods can be suggested by development of teaching materials in the viewpoint of STEAM after selection convergent learning contents?
Second, what effects can be influenced to the formation of scientific content knowledge by the convergently recomposed teaching and learning plan?
Third, what effects can be influenced to the formation of scientific interest and confidence by the convergently recomposed teaching and learning plan?
As a result of this study, first, the scientific class in which STEAM was applied didn't influence very much the formation of scientific content knowledge of the lower grades of elementary school. However, according the characteristics by student, it could be understood that it is effective to the formation of scientific content knowledge for a short time of period.
Second, the scientific class in which STEAM was applied influenced the interest of the lower grades of elementary school in the science class and the formation of scientific interest and confidence in science learning.
Based on these results, it can be considered that the scientific class in which STEAM was applied influenced the interest of the lower grades of elementary school in science and science learning and confidence improvement.
The suggestions of this study are as follow.
Because this study performed a research for the lower grades of elementary school, succeeding studies on STEAM for middle and high school students and for gifted students and recognition and demands about the necessity of STEAM from professors and educational experts concentrating sustained efforts for the development of STEAM are required.
In addition, due to the initial stage of the study on STEAM, the study on the integrated STEAM program in compliance with our educational field should be active to generalize the use of teachers in the educational field as teaching design data. At last, the study on STEAM should not disappear as a temporary trend but its study should be consistent as a new educational method to raise gifted persons necessary to the future society and the efforts to make lots of teachers share it as a required teaching method for science education should be made.