The emergence of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) in research and the practice of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education is today an unquestionable fact at international level. Despite the importance attached to STEM education, there is a lack of synthesized approaches to teaching the interdisciplinarity of STEM. This lack of synthesis can hinder a strong theoretical foundation for STEM education and possible new contributions. The purpose of this position paper is to contribute a theoretical framework for STEM education that enables the unification of criteria regarding disciplinary integration and associated teaching methods. The authors discuss disciplinary integration in STEM activities, the implication of STEM literacy, educational stage, and teaching method, and provide suggestions for future research.

El presente estudio trata de dar respuesta a una serie de interrogantes relacionados con los lenguajes de programación en el marco de la educación formal; en particular, en qué etapas educativas se usan los lenguajes de programación y cuáles son los más utilizados. A su vez, se pretende conocer la repercusión de estos lenguajes en el aprendizaje del alumnado, para lo cual se ha estudiado su influencia en el desarrollo de las competencias clave. Se llevó a cabo una revisión sistemática, según los fundamentos de la declaración PRISMA, de los trabajos indexados en las bases de datos Web of Science y Scopus entre 2007 y 2018. Los resultados muestran un incipiente interés de la comunidad científica por los lenguajes de programación en entornos educativos formales. Asimismo, se ha constatado la eficacia del uso de los lenguajes de programación en el desarrollo competencial del alumnado.

Do pre-service teachers have the same beliefs in superstitions and pseudoscience as the members of their generation? We expect so, because they are slightly different in at least two of the variables that explain differences, namely family income and level of studies, and also, normatively, because beliefs among teaching staff appear to be a key matter in the scientific literacy of citizens. In this work, we compare data from the general public of the same age to our sample of 578 pre-service teachers from five Spanish universities, using the same questionnaire. Multivariate regression analysis is then used to study the factors that affect defence of such beliefs and the differences between pre-service teachers and their age group. We have found that, on the contrary to what was expected, beliefs among pre-service teachers are not far from those of their age group in the population at large. Within that relatively homogenous group, a favourable attitude toward pseudoscience and superstition mainly depends on their educational level and basic knowledge of science, but that knowledge probably depends on their spontaneous interest in scientific matters and a prior favourable attitude. These results have implications in training scientific teachers and in the scientific literacy of the population. Thus, we must consider such non-scientific beliefs when designing classroom proposals and when communicating scientific content in social contexts.

This article proposes a theoretical framework for STEM education. It begins by determining the epistemological (based on the Model of Educational Reconstruction and General Systems Theory) and pedagogical (grounded in Situated Learning Theory and co-teaching) alignments. Once these issues are established, a pedagogical model is proposed to facilitate the implementation of the STEM approach in the classroom. This is the IDEARR model, consisting of six phases (Initial, Deconstruction, Explanation, Application, Review, and Reporting) to address an ill-defined problem. This article concludes with a reflection on the educational implications that arise from adopting this theoretical framework for working on STEM education in classrooms, particularly those related to the organization and operation of educational institutions and the initial and ongoing training of teachers.

En este trabajo se examinan las respuestas de 35 maestros de Primaria en formación a una actividad dirigida al reconocimiento de las etapas de una indagación científica y de las acciones necesarias para afrontarlas. Para ello, se diseña un ejemplo de indagación en el que se describe el proceso de resolución seguido para explicar la diferencia de precio de tres marcas de jamón. Los resultados muestran que el desempeño en la identificación de las etapas es más adecuado que en la de las acciones. Mientras que el número mínimo de participantes que identifica una etapa es de 16, hay acciones, como la recogida de datos, que solo es identificada por uno. Una implicación derivada de este estudio es la necesidad de reflexionar, durante la formación inicial del profesorado, sobre cómo se genera y evoluciona el conocimiento científico.