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This study models the process of designing learning materials for integrated STEM (iSTEM) in secondary education, as gone through by four multidisciplinary teams of STEM teachers in Flanders (Belgium). In order to identify the crucial, counterproductive, and missing activities in the observed design processes, the learning materials developed by each team were assessed with respect to the key principles of iSTEM education. Crucial activities in the observed design processes appeared to be the formation of a multidisciplinary design team, a brainstorm on themes, the identification and linking of STEM contents, and the exploration of a feasible, engaging student challenge with interrelated subproblems. The observed processes lacked a specification of the targeted learning goals and the inclusion of research-based instructional strategies aiming at these goals. The evidence-based model of the iSTEM design process resulting from this study can fuel teacher training programs and empower pre- and in-service teachers to create high-quality integrated STEM education.

In order to motivate secondary school pupils for STEM studies and professions, a teaching approach with a focus on integration of STEM components is developed. This paper focuses on the integration of physics and mathematics into an engineering design problem in K10 education, namely building and heating a model of a passive house with a sun boiler. Specific attention is given to the core ideas of integrated STEM while developing this module. These applied ideas comprise problem-centered and cooperative learning, with explicit attention to research and design, as well as taking into account results from discipline specific educational research results.

High level, abstract engineering thinking and design is a subject that is hardly addressed in current curricula for secondary education. This is contradictory to the increasing need for more in depth STEM education in secondary schools dictated by the evolution of our society towards an ever more STEM based information society. In this paper an approach is presented to introduce 16 year old Belgian pupils to some of the most important, basic concepts of control theory. Control theory is here exemplary for more general engineering science. The problem used to introduce control theory is that of heating system design in houses.

The shortage of graduates in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) has led to numerous attempts to increase students' interest in STEM. One emerging approach that has the potential to improve students' motivation for STEM is integrated STEM education. Nonetheless, the implementation of this new instructional strategy is not straightforward due to the lack of consensus about instructional practices in integrated STEM. This paper contributes to this challenge by providing a well-defined framework for instructional practices in integrated STEM in secondary education, based on the results of a systematic review of existing literature. The framework contains five key principles: integration of STEM content, problem-centered learning, inquiry-based learning, design-based learning and cooperative learning. The proposed framework has several benefits, including its applicability in the classroom and the possibility to describe integrated STEM on multiple dimensions. Nonetheless, further research is necessary to investigate the effects of integrated STEM on students' cognitive and affective learning outcomes.

A promising approach to increase students' motivation for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is integrated STEM education (iSTEM). This is an instructional approach that emphasizes the deeper connections between the STEM disciplines by involving students in design challenges centered around real-world problems. However, the successful implementation of a new instructional approach, such as iSTEM, strongly depends on teachers' attitudes toward the innovation. Therefore, a deeper understanding of teachers' attitudes toward teaching iSTEM is necessary. This study uses a survey method to investigate the influence of teachers' background characteristics and school context variables on teachers' attitudes toward teaching iSTEM. To do so, a differential approach is used. Attitudes toward five key principles for iSTEM (integration, problem-centered, inquiry-based, design-based, and cooperative learning) are examined separately to get a more in-depth and nuanced insight into the factors influencing these attitudes. Results of the multiple regression analyses show that participation in professional development is positively linked to teachers' attitudes toward all key principles, whereas several other teacher and school context variables are positively correlated with attitudes toward one or two principles. Moreover, experience in mathematics and total years of teaching show a negative correlation with several aspects of teachers' attitudes toward teaching iSTEM. Findings of this study are valuable, since they not only provide insight into possible barriers to the implementation of iSTEM but also suggest opportunities for overcoming these barriers.

We design, validate, and administer a 24-item test to study student understanding of linear functions in 1D kinematics [x(t)] and mathematics [y(x)] in the 9th grade. The items assess identification and comparison of initial position and velocity in 1D kinematics and of the y intercept and slope in mathematics using a graph or an algebraic formula. Results show that students' performance on most mathematics items is significantly better than on their isomorphic kinematic counterparts, but also that most of the easiest as well as the most difficult items are kinematics items. Students achieve the highest accuracies on graphical questions in which they must compare two positive slopes, and they achieve the lowest accuracies on questions in which they must determine or compare a negative slope. We find that students have more difficulties with the y intercept in mathematics and with the slope in kinematics. Furthermore, questions in symbolic representation result in far lower accuracies compared to questions in graphical representation, particularly when the y intercept or the slope has to be determined instead of compared. We also analyze the results qualitatively by categorizing the students'strategies and errors. We find frequent confusion between the x intercept and the y intercept in mathematics, but far less in kinematics. Negative velocities in kinematics are by far the largest pitfall, whereas negative slope in mathematics is rarely an issue. The results also show a significant frequency of interval or point confusions in kinematics but very little in mathematics. We reaffirm the occurrence of the interval or point confusion in questions with graphs and discuss three different cases of interval or point confusions in questions with algebraic expressions: numerical, algebraic, and unit based. Our results indicate a weak link between kinematics and mathematics and we suggest that closer integration between these two contexts during education could benefit student understanding of linear functions and linear phenomena in kinematics.

The display of the future is multimodal, integrating optical sensors, RFID antennas, ultrasound transducers, etc. The sensors produce a large amount of redundant data, which should be preprocessed on the substrate, ideally on the backpanel. Control gates and select and data drivers need to be more configurable and partitionable to create operational flexibility. This paper presents various circuit blocks for processing and control, including operational amplifiers, high‐resolution analog‐to‐digital converters, a microprocessor, DC‐DC converters, and high resolution sensor pixel array architectures. Moreover, the performance of the basic building blocks is compared in LTPS and IGZO technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrated Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education is an emerging approach to improve students' achievement and interest in STEM disciplines. However, the implementation of integrated STEM education depends strongly on teachers' competence, which entails, among others, teachers' attitudes. Nonetheless, not much is known about the factors that influence teachers' attitudes toward teaching integrated STEM. Therefore this paper uses a survey method to get insight into the relationship between three groups of variables and teachers' attitudes toward teaching integrated STEM: teacher background characteristics, personal attitudes and school context variables. The results of the multiple regression analyses reveal three variables that are positively linked with teachers' attitudes: professional development, personal relevance of science and social context. Moreover two variables show a negative correlation: having more than 20 years of teaching experience and experience in mathematics. The results of this study provide valuable information about factors related to teachers' attitudes toward teaching integrated STEM. Moreover, these results can be deployed by school administrators to guide them when implementing integrated STEM education in their school.

This study reports on the development, validation, and administration of a 48-item multiple-choice test to assess students' representational fluency of linear functions in a physics context (1D kinematics) and a mathematics context. The test includes three external representations: graphs, tables, and formulas, which result in six possible representational transitions between them. Moreover, four linear function types are included: negative "y" intercept and positive slope, zero "y" intercept and positive slope, positive "y" intercept and negative slope, and positive "y" intercept and positive slope. The test is administered to 385 students aged 14-15 in the 9th grade from 13 schools in Flanders (Belgium) and--after validation--is analyzed by means of generalized estimating equations (GEE). The results show a significant main effect for all design factors and a significant interaction effect between representational transition and function type, as well as additional interaction effects with the gender of the respondents. Furthermore, representational transitions which include a formula prove to be significantly more difficult; in particular for the directly proportional function type, the transition to a formula stands out from the analysis. Mean accuracies in physics are significantly lower compared to mathematics. Function types with negative values for either "y" intercept or slope also result in significantly lower mean accuracies indicating the difficulty students have with negative numbers in linear functions. A distractor analysis of the incorrect answers chosen by the students reveals three distinct dominant errors: concept switching, sign switching, and switching of the directly proportional function type and the function type with positive "y" intercept and positive slope.