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1. Toward a productive definition of Technology in science and STEM education

   Ellis, J. A.; Wieselmann, J. R.; Sivaraj, R.; Roehrig, G. H.; Dare, E. A.; & Ring-Whalen, E. A. (March 2020, Contemporary issues in technology and teacher education)

   The lack of a definition of the T in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) acronym is pervasive, and it is often the teachers of STEM disciplines who inherit the task of defining the role of technology within their K-12 classrooms. These definitions often vary significantly, and they have profound implications for curricular and instructional goals within science and STEM classrooms. This theoretical paper summarizes of technology initiatives across science and STEM education from the past 30 years to present perspectives on the role of technology in science-focused STEM education. The most prominent perspectives describe technology as the following: (a) vocational education, industrial arts, or the product of engineering, (b) educational or instructional technology, (c) computing or computational thinking, and (d) the tools and practices used by practitioners of science, mathematics, and engineering. We have identified the fourth perspective as the most salient with respect to K-12 science and STEM education. This particular perspective is in many ways compatible with the other three perspectives, but this depends heavily on the beliefs, prior experiences, and instructional goals of teachers who use technology in their science or STEM classroom. 

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2. Gender Stereotypes and Peer Selection in STEM Domains Among Children and Adolescents

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-022-01327-9  

   McGuire, Luke; Hoffman, Adam J.; Mulvey, Kelly Lynn; Hartstone-Rose, Adam; Winterbottom, Mark; Joy, Angelina; Law, Fidelia; Balkwill, Frances; Burns, Karen P.; Butler, Laurence; et al (November 2022, Sex Roles)

   Abstract Gender stereotypes are harmful for girls’ enrollment and performance in science and mathematics. So far, less is known about children’s and adolescents’ stereotypes regarding technology and engineering. In the current study, participants’ (N = 1,206, girlsn = 623; 5–17-years-old,M = 8.63,SD = 2.81) gender stereotypes for each of the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) domains were assessed along with the relation between these stereotypes and a peer selection task in a STEM context. Participants reported beliefs that boys are usually more skilled than are girls in the domains of engineering and technology; however, participants did not report gender differences in ability/performance in science and mathematics. Responses to the stereotype measures in favor of one’s in-group were greater for younger participants than older participants for both boys and girls. Perceptions that boys are usually better than girls at science were related to a greater likelihood of selecting a boy for help with a science question. These findings document the importance of domain specificity, even within STEM, in attempts to measure and challenge gender stereotypes in childhood and adolescence. 

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3. Disciplinary Leaders Perceptions of Ethics: An Interview-Based Study of Ethics Frameworks Paper ID #37843

   Pinkert, LA; Taylor, L.; Beever, J.; Kuebler, SM; Klonoff, E. (August 2022, ASEE 2022)

   Understanding institutional leaders’ perspectives on ethics frameworks can help us better conceptualize where, how, and for whom ethics is made explicit across and within STEM related disciplines and, in turn, to better understand the ways developing professionals are enculturated toward responsibility within their disciplines. As part of an NSF-funded institutional transformation project, our research team conducted interviews with academic leaders about the frameworks of ethics in their home departments, programs, and fields. This paper reports on a series of eleven (11) interviews whose content describes the perspectives of disciplinary leaders from biology, chemistry, computer science, mathematics, mechanical and aerospace engineering, optics, philosophy, physics, psychology, STEM education, and writing and rhetoric. Contextualizing frameworks through the participants’ identification of experience, content, and audience allows us to better understand the landscape of ethics practices and procedures that act as the explicit training and education STEM learners receive in their disciplines. If ethics is an important educational focus for engineering, and the work of engineering relies on interdisciplinary connections, then understanding how ethics is taken up both within and across those collaborating disciplines is an important means of supporting ethics in engineering. 

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4. Elementary teachers’ beliefs about teaching mathematics and science: Implications for Argumentation

   https://doi.org/10.51272/pmena.42.2020-321  

   Conner, AnnaMarie; Miller, Claire; Menke, Jenna; Zhuang, Yuling (December 2020, Proceedings of the 42nd Meeting of the North American Chapter of the International Group for the Psychology of Mathematics Education)

   Sacristán, A.I.; Cortés-Zavala, J.C.; Ruiz-Arias, P.M. (Ed.)

   Teachers in the elementary grades often teach all subjects and are expected to have appropriate content knowledge of a wide range of disciplines. Current recommendations suggest teachers should integrate multiple disciplines into the same lesson, for instance, when teaching integrated STEM lessons. Although there are many similarities between STEM fields, there are also epistemological differences to be understood by students and teachers. This study investigated teachers’ beliefs about teaching mathematics and science using argumentation and the epistemological and contextual factors that may have influenced these beliefs. Teachers’ beliefs about different epistemological underpinnings of mathematics and science, along with contextual constraints, led to different beliefs and intentions for practice with respect to argumentation in these disciplines. The contextual constraint of testing and the amount of curriculum the teachers perceived as essential focused more attention on the teaching of mathematics, which could be seen as benefiting student learning of mathematics. On the other hand, the perception of science as involving wonder, curiosity, and inherently positive and interesting ideas may lead to the creation of a more positive learning environment for the teaching of science. These questions remain open and need to be studied further: What are the consequences of perceiving argumentation in mathematics as limited to concepts already well-understood? Can integrating the teaching of mathematics and science lead to more exploratory and inquiry-based teaching of mathematical ideas alongside scientific ones? 

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5. Challenges and Opportunities: Asian Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics

   https://doi.org/10.1177/00027642221078509  

   Varma, Roli; Falk, John; Dierking, Lynn (April 2022, American Behavioral Scientist)

   This special issue brings selected papers from an international conference which brought a group of approximately 30 Science Technology and Society and Popularization of Science experts from nine South Asian and Southeast Asian countries (Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Thailand), plus the United States. They discussed how best to enhance public awareness about the role of women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). These papers show how to develop strategies for increasing the participation of women in STEM, both as STEM professionals and as informed and engaged, lifelong participants in a STEM-rich world. 

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