Chiu-Lin Lai 

Department of Education, National Taipei University of Education, Taiwan // jolen761002@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: 

This study employed drawing and co-word analysis techniques to explore students’ preferences for AI-assisted learning environments. A total of 64 teacher education students from a university in Taiwan participated in the study. The participants were asked to describe their perceptions of AI-assisted learning in the form of drawings and text descriptions. In order to analyze the content of the students’ drawings, a coding scheme was developed based on the activity theory framework. Based on the results of the analysis, it was found that students placed more importance on personalized guidance and appropriate learning content provision. In addition, students acknowledged that AI technology can be used flexibly in different fields and situations. Interestingly, more than half of the students agreed that robots play important roles in AI-assisted learning. This indicates that the students expected a social AI learning companion. However, it was found that students’ expectations of an AI learning environment were less connected to the real environment and did not reveal learning activities with higher order thinking. In addition to the need for accurate and fast AI computing, this result indicated that professional instructional guidance is also an expectation that students have of AI education.

Keyword: 

Preference of learning environment, AI education, Co-word analysis, Drawing analysis, Activity theory framework

Chi-Jen Lin 

College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan // chi.jen1023@gmail.com

Husni Mubarok

Graduate Institute of Digital Learning and Education, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan // husnimubarok254@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: 

One of the biggest challenges for EFL (English as Foreign Language) students to learn English is the lack of practicing environments. Although language researchers have attempted to conduct flipped classrooms to increase the practicing time in class, EFL students generally have difficulties interacting with peers and teachers in English in class. The advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) provides an opportunity to address this problem. With AI technologies, computer systems, in particular in the form of AI chatbots, are able to identify the meanings of users’ statements and make responses accordingly. In the research design, AI-based chatbots were employed in the in-class and out-of-class activities for facilitating the students’ speaking performance and interactions during the learning process in a university flipped English speaking classroom. The experimental results show that the mind map-guided AI chatbot approach (MM-AI) promoted the students’ English speaking performances more than did the conventional AI chatbot approach (C-AI). Moreover, the MM-AI also promoted the students’ learning performance and organized the interaction between the robots and humans more than the C-AI did. The findings could be a valuable reference for language educators and researchers who intend to conduct AI-supported flipped classrooms in language learning.

Keywords: 

AI chatbot, Mind-map strategy, English speaking flipped learning, Learning analytics

Hui-Chun Chu

Department of Computer Science and Information Management, Soochow University, Taiwan // carolhcchu@gmail.com

Jun-Ming Chen 

Department of Operation, Visitor Service, Collection and Information, National Museum of Natural Science, Taiwan // jackychen.academic@gmail.com

Fan-Ray Kuo

Department of Computer Science and Information Management, Soochow University, Taiwan // revonkuo@gmail.com

Shu-Min Yang

Department of Computer Science and Information Management, Soochow University, Taiwan // james66858@gmail.com

ABSTRACT:

Although game-based learning strategies have been used in mathematics education for a period of time, the potential for enhancing students’ learning achievement and math self-efficacy is still being explored. Students need to face complex mathematics concepts and calculations in mathematics courses. Even though using games to learn mathematics may enhance students’ motivation, without efficiently personalized learning guidance, students may not be able to learn well in games. Therefore, adaptive educational games provide opportunities to give students personalized learning content and guidance. The concept-effect relationship is an effective tool for the organization of learning material in developing adaptive diagnostic systems for detecting students’ learning problems. In this study, a concept-effect relationship and an interactive game-based learning system were conducted as an effective tool for the organization of learning material in developing a diagnostic and remedial system for detecting students’ learning problems. An experiment was conducted on an elementary school mathematics course to evaluate the effects of the proposed approach. The experimental results clearly show that the proposed approach not only improves the efficiency of learning achievement for students, but also enhances their learning attitudes and self-efficacy, and reduces their cognitive load in mathematics courses.

Keywords: 

Adaptive learning, Personalized learning, Mathematics education, Interactive learning environments, testing and diagnostic system

Chih-Yueh Chou

Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Yuan Ze University, Taiwan, R.O.C. // cychou@saturn.yzu.edu.tw 

 Chun-Ho Chang

Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Yuan Ze University, Taiwan, R.O.C. // s1076024@mail.yzu.edu.tw

ABSTRACT: 

Help-seeking is an important self-regulated learning strategy and skill for effective learning. Studies have found that some students have poor help-seeking behaviors and that this leads to poor learning performance. Some researchers have developed help-seeking regulation mechanisms to detect and regulate students’ poor help-seeking behaviors. Studies have also found that students have different help-seeking tendencies. Thus, adaptive help-seeking regulation mechanisms for different help-seeking tendencies are required. This study applied a help-seeking questionnaire and a K-means clustering approach to identify three help-seeking tendencies in the context of a computer assisted learning system (CALS). Then, adaptive help-seeking detection and regulation mechanisms were developed for these three help-seeking tendencies. The regulation mechanisms also adopted historical student records of problem-solving and help-seeking data for each problem as parameters to account for the difficulty of each problem. Furthermore, an experiment was conducted with a control group and an experimental group. Students in the experimental group used a CALS with adaptive help-seeking regulation mechanisms, whereas students in the control group used a CALS without the regulation mechanisms and could seek help at will. The experimental results showed that students in the experimental group had better learning performance for difficult problems, better help-seeking behaviors (i.e., less executive help-seeking) for easy problems, and a higher ratio of solving problems by themselves without seeking help than students in the control group.

Keywords: 

Help-seeking behaviors, Help-seeking tendencies, Negotiation-based regulation, Individual difference, Intelligent computer assisted learning systems

Bai-Li Hwang

Department of Information Management, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. // hbl09201@gmail.com 

Tzu-Chuan Chou

Department of Information Management, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C.// tcchou@mail.ntust.edu.tw

Chen-Hao Huang

Department of Information Management, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei, Taiwan, R.O.C. // chhuang@mail.ntust.edu.tw

ABSTRACT: 

As the number of mobile device owners on university campuses grew over the past two decades, scholars specializing in digital education and its application versatility have taken a heightened interest in mobile learning programs and platforms. The nature of mobile learning is constantly evolving with the development of technology artifacts, and it brings the purpose of this article into sharper focus as we examine mobile learning from various perspectives, critical issues confronting distant education programs, and identify potential research directions for future studies. To that end, main path analysis, a citation-based systematic review method, is employed for this study in collecting and analyzing of 935 articles that address mobile learning in the higher education community. The results of the analysis identify several significant trajectories, which reveal four popular research clusters: mobile technology artifact, educator motivation approach, learner learning projection, and actualizing mobile learning and in turn identifies two mobile learning research derivatives: Mobile-technology affordance and actualizing mobile learning. This kind of discovery research has demonstrated that mobile learning will strengthen learning references.

Keywords: 

Mobile Learning, M-Learning, Affordance actualization, Main path analysis 

Morris Siu-Yung Jong

The Chinese University of Hong Kong, HKSAR, China // mjong@cuhk.edu.hk

Yanjie Song

The Education University of Hong Kong, HKSAR, China // ysong@eduhk.hk 

Elliot Soloway

University of Michigan, USA // soloway@umich.edu

Cathleen Norris

University of North Texas, USA // cathie.norris@unt.edu

ABSTRACT: 

In line with the substantial interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education and the major projects in STEM curriculum development around the world, efforts should be particularly made to increase the supply of STEM teachers through proper and effective teacher professional development. Although there have been a number of studies related to teacher professional development for individual subject training in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, quality research on professional development for teachers to develop their capacity for adopting the integrative and cross-disciplinary approaches advocated in STEM education remains in its infancy. The theme of this special issue is two-fold: (a) to provide researchers and practitioners in STEM education with a scholarly platform for reflecting on what challenges and impediments STEM teachers have encountered, and (b) to exchange new theoretical and practical insights gained from empirical research on designing, enacting and evaluating professional development programmes for building teachers’ capacity in STEM education.  

Keywords: 

STEM education, Teacher professional development, Teacher capacity building, Teacher education

Winnie Wing Mui So

Department of Science and Environmental Studies, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the People’s Republic of China // Centre for Education in Environmental Sustainability, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the People’s Republic of China // wiso@eduhk.hk 

Qianwen He

Department of Science and Environmental Studies, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the People’s Republic of China // s1122615@s.eduhk.hk 

Irene Nga Yee Cheng

Department of Science and Environmental Studies, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the People’s Republic of China // nycheng@eduhk.hk

Theodore Tai Ho Lee

Department of Education Policy and Leadership, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the People’s Republic of China //  tthlee@eduhk.hk

Wai Chin Li

Department of Science and Environmental Studies, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the People’s Republic of China // waichin@eduhk.hk

ABSTRACT: 

In recent years, STEM learning has become a new education initiative worldwide. However, little research has considered the needs of students with Intellectual Disabilities (ID) in this initiative. Believing that individuals with disabilities should be evaluated and defined by their capacity, strengths, and broad range of interests and abilities, this research investigated this less-explored perspective in STEM learning, namely supporting teachers providing STEM learning for ID students. Four teachers in two special schools for children with intellectual disabilities worked collaboratively with each other in their schools to plan and implement STEM learning. Peer coaching was recommended to the teachers in order to improve their planning of STEM learning and their teaching practices for teachers’ professional development (TPD). The qualitative research methodology was used, and detailed analysis of teachers’ pre- and post-TPD interviews and reflections to identify good practices that helped ID students accomplish the tasks and disparities that influenced peer coaching was performed. While challenging, with support from peers and due considerations of the special learning needs of ID students, this research provides useful insights for teachers to support ID students in STEM learning, including the use of technology in the STEM learning design, the consideration of inquiry learning based on students’ abilities in implementation, and the focus on teachers’ disparity and school involvement with peer coaching.

Keywords: 

Teacher professional development, STEM learning, Peer coaching, Students with intellectual disabilities

Yun Wen

National Institute of Education (NIE), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore // yun.wen@nie.edu.sg

Longkai Wu

Central China Normal University, China // longkai.wu@gmail.com

Sujin He

National Institute of Education (NIE), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore // sujin.he@nie.edu.sg

ABSTRACT: 

The key role of teachers has been widely acknowledged in education reform and pedagogical innovation, and there is no exception in STEM education. This paper documents affordances and tensions in the implementation of STEM applied learning programme (ALP) through investigating school leaders and teachers’ sensemaking of the new approach. Attending to both the individual processing and the social interactive work with issues of coherence, sensemaking theory provides a theoretical framework for analysing school culture and resources and connections between actions and understandings of school leaders and teachers in the programme. In this qualitative case study, semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions were conducted with three school leaders and three teachers from two Singapore secondary schools to identify their prior understandings, shared interaction and interpretations during the practice. The findings provide some insights into implementations of STEM in schools and professional development.   

Keywords: 

STEM education, Applied learning, Sensemaking, Teacher professional development

Garry Falloon

The Macquarie School of Education, Macquarie University, Australia // garry.falloon@mq.edu.au

Michael Stevenson

The Macquarie School of Education, Macquarie University, Australia // michael.stevenson@mq.edu.au

Kim Beswick

The School of Education, The University of New South Wales, Australia // k.beswick@unsw.edu.au

Sharon Fraser

The School of Education, The University of Tasmania, Australia // sharon.fraser@utas.edu.au

Vincent Geiger

Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education, Australian Catholic University, Australia // vincent.geiger@acu.edu.au

ABSTRACT: 

The Principals as STEM Leaders (PASL) project was an Australian Government-funded national research and professional learning programme for principals, aimed at building STEM leadership capacity. The project involved cluster-based delivery of six learning modules and generation of case studies outlining schools’ different approaches to STEM education and STEM leadership. This article analyses factors contributing to the development of four contrasting schools’ STEM profiles, identifying the unique approaches and leadership strategies each adopted in designing STEM curriculum for meeting the learning needs of their diverse students. It positions these schools’ endeavours within the broader PASL professional learning programme, adding to the limited body of empirical work detailing different approaches schools take to the “STEM challenge,” which, for most, presents a disruptive innovation to traditional curriculum and structures. The vital role of school leaders in communicating a clear, evidence-based vision for STEM and also “walking the talk” and being highly engaged in STEM programmes, was a common feature across the cases. This built relational trust, and a strong whole-of-school commitment to and understanding of STEM, to some extent mitigating the challenges of rigid curriculum and external assessment requirements. The study highlights the complex interaction of professional learning, leadership, curriculum design, pedagogy, and school culture in establishing innovative STEM programmes in schools.

Keywords: 

Principal, STEM, Leadership, Curriculum, Professional learning

Chiu-Lin Lai

Department of Education, National Taipei University of Education, Taiwan // jolen761002@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: 

Educators believe that STEM activities allow students to use multiple skills to solve real-world problems; therefore, it has been recognized as an effective way to apply academic knowledge to life’s problems. While many studies have examined the effectiveness and perceptions of students’ learning through STEM activities, little research has been conducted on teachers’ perceptions of STEM activities. In particular, there has been little research on teachers’ preferences for STEM learning. Therefore, in this study, two questionnaires were employed to investigate the teachers’ preferences for and perceptions of STEM learning and teaching. The questionnaire of teachers’ preferences for STEM learning consisted of four scales, namely, activity flexibility, technology support, classroom interaction and teaching assistance, while the questionnaire of perceptions of STEM learning included higher order thinking, collaboration, and attitude toward STEM learning. A total of 307 teachers from 25 high schools in Taiwan filled in the questionnaire after conducting STEM activities. From the result of structural equation modeling it was found that teachers’ perception of collaboration was the key element connecting the teachers’ preference for STEM activities and attitude toward STEM learning. In addition, the teachers’ preference for technical support and classroom interaction positively correlated with their perceptions of higher order thinking and collaboration, while activity flexibility and teaching assistance positively correlated with their attitude toward STEM learning. According to the results, it was found that teachers’ perceptions of STEM learning were pluralistic and differed according to their preferences.

Keywords: 

STEM education, Teacher professional development, Teaching preference, Attitude toward STEM education

Chung Kwan Lo

Department of Mathematics and Information Technology, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China // chungkwanlo@eduhk.hk

ABSTRACT: 

In recent years, there has been increasing emphasis on integrated STEM education, reflecting the fact that the four STEM disciplines (i.e., science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) are often integrated in real-world applications. However, most K-12 teachers are trained within their own subject discipline and may not be capable of implementing an integrated approach to STEM education. There is therefore a need to develop teacher professional development (TPD) programs that can provide high-quality learning opportunities and support for teachers. The overarching goal of this research synthesis is to develop a set of design principles for effective TPD for integrated STEM education. To this end, this paper reviews 48 empirical studies and identifies the elements of effective TPD and potential challenges to implementing integrated STEM education. Content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and sample STEM instructional materials are the three most frequently reported elements of effective TPD programs. However, even with TPD, teachers encounter various obstacles to the implementation of integrated STEM education, including pedagogical challenges (e.g., teachers’ limited STEM knowledge) and structural challenges (e.g., teachers’ lack of preparation time and resources). Based on the findings of this review, a set of design principles (e.g., allocate TPD time for teachers’ micro-teaching) is proposed. This review contributes to the design and implementation of TPD programs by leveraging studies of the effective elements of TPD and addressing the potential challenges to integrated STEM education.

Keywords: 

STEM education, STEM integration, Professional development, Teacher education, Literature review

Thomas K. F. Chiu

Department of Curriculum and Instruction and Centre for Learning Sciences and Technologies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong // tchiu@cuhk.edu.hk 

Ching Sing Chai

Department of Curriculum and Instruction, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong // cschai@cuhk.edu.hk

P. John Williams

School of Education, Curtin University, Australia // Pjohn.Williams@curtin.edu.au 

Tzung-Jin Lin

Program of Learning Sciences, Institute for Research Excellence in Learning Sciences, National Taiwan Normal University, Taiwan // tzungjinlin@ntnu.edu.tw

ABSTRACT: 

Design thinking has become increasingly important in the context of the current movement toward integrated STEM education. Allied teaching practices often take the form of project-based learning, which represents a major shift in the teaching and learning process and poses challenges for many teachers during implementation. Many professional development programmes for STEM teachers focus on the development of teacher beliefs and content or technological knowledge. Teachers may not have enough opportunities to gain sufficient knowledge of how to foster students’ intrinsic motivation for project-based learning. The teacher-support dimensions – autonomy, structure and involvement – distinguished in self-determination theory (SDT) can foster student motivation, and the teaching experience can allow for feedback and reflection. Accordingly, this study aimed to investigate how to design a PD programme consisting of a workshop and actual teaching experience as a way of using SDT-based design thinking in teaching STEM project-based learning. Specifically, the study comprised two interventions designed to examine how teacher/student learning is affected by workshops alone and actual teaching experience, respectively. The participants were 60 teachers and 358 secondary school students. The findings revealed that it is beneficial for teachers to apply what they learned from workshops in classroom teaching and that SDT-based design thinking benefits students more than non-SDT-based design thinking. Hence, this study suggests that professional development should occur over a sustained period, enhance teacher capacity to support students’ needs, and offer multiple opportunities for feedback and reflection. Consequently, a model of pedagogical design thinking for professional development programmes is proposed. 

Keywords: 

Teacher professional development, STEM education, Self-Determination theory, Motivation, Design thinking

 Robin Jocius

University of Texas at Arlington, TX, United States // robin.jocius@uta.edu

W. Ian O’Byrne

College of Charleston, SC, United States // obyrnei@cofc.edu

Jennifer Albert

The Citadel, SC, United States // jalbert@citadel.edu

Deepti Joshi

The Citadel, SC, United States // djoshi@citadel.edu

Richard Robinson

The Citadel, SC, United States // rjmr@citadel.edu

Ashley Andrews

The Citadel, SC, United States // aandrew1@citadel.edu 

ABSTRACT: 

Despite increasing attention to the potential benefits of infusing computational thinking into content area classrooms, more research is needed to examine how teachers integrate disciplinary content and CT as part of their pedagogical practices. This study traces how middle and high school teachers (n = 24) drew on their existing knowledge and their experiences in a STEM professional development program to infuse CT into their teaching. Our work is grounded in theories of TPACK and TPACK-CT, which leverage teachers’ knowledge of technology for computational thinking (CT), CT as a disciplinary pedagogical practice, and STEM content knowledge. Findings identify three key pedagogical supports that teachers utilized and transformed as they taught CT-infused lessons (articulating a key purpose for CT infusion, scaffolding, and collaborative contexts), as well as barriers that caused teachers to adapt or abandon their lessons. Implications include suggestions for future research on CT infusion into secondary classrooms, as well as broader recommendations to support teachers in applying STEM professional development content to classroom practice.

Keywords: 

Computational thinking, STEM, TPACK, TPACK-CT, Professional development, Teacher learning, Computer science education

Michael A. Lawson 

Kansas State University, USA // mlawson1@ksu.edu

Imogen R. Herrick

University of Southern, USA // iherrick@usc.edu

Joshua M. Rosenberg

University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA // jmrosenberg@utk.edu 

ABSTRACT: 

While the perspectives and practices of many educational stakeholders in relation to STEM have been documented, research has yet to deeply explore pre-service teachers’ (PST) understandings and how to support their sensemaking about STEM during pre-service teacher education. To address this, we used two STEM integration frameworks, focused on discipline-based practices and modeling with data, to inform the design of a STEM unit that brought together thirty secondary mathematics and science PSTs. With an eye on PSTs’ development of a situated understanding of STEM, a qualitative analysis of pre/post surveys and STEM lesson sketches revealed that PSTs collectively shifted from initial views of STEM as blurred lines between subjects to a more nuanced understanding of where and how subjects cross and meet. PSTs also described STEM activities through a more plausible understanding of student and teacher actions and viewed data as a bridge to connect disciplines and the real-world. Furthermore, PSTs’ descriptions of anticipated challenges to planning for and implementing STEM mirrored those of in-service teachers. We discuss these findings through the lens of sensemaking theory, highlighting shifts in the sum of PSTs’ individual understandings to a more collective and situated understanding of STEM. We also discuss implications focused on the role of data in STEM activities and the affordances of secondary mathematics and science PSTs sensemaking together to about STEM.

Keywords: 

STEM integration, Pre-service teacher education, Mathematics education, Science education, Teacher sensemaking 

Oi-Lam Ng

The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR // oilamn@cuhk.edu.hk 

Moonyoung Park

Jeju National University, Republic of Korea // moonyoungpark@jejunu.ac.kr 

ABSTRACT: 

This paper reports on the design, implementation, and results of a video-based study that focused on supporting an individualized viewing experience, keeping a record of what was noticed, providing a degree of guiding framework, and facilitating a combination of individual and collaborative reflections in noticing activities for STEM professional development. A cohort of 20 prospective mathematics teachers at a public university in Hong Kong participated in the study. The participants engaged in a series of blended learning activities with a feature that allowed them to leave comments while viewing of a lesson video, which focused on technology integration in mathematics classrooms. The designed activities were helpful for the participants to document and reflect on their observations, while viewing videos outside the classroom allowed them to meaningfully engage with the course materials. Moreover, the use of videos supported the participants’ broad but crucial STEM classroom practices that would help them prepare for future lessons.

Keywords: 

Professional development, Teacher noticing, Videos, STEM education, Preservice teachers 

Ben Haas

Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria // ben.haas@outlook.com

Yves Kreis

University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg // yves.kreis@uni.lu 

Zsolt Lavicza

Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria // lavicza@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: 

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic it was impossible to carry out on-campus teaching and examinations as planned for the first-year elementary school Bachelor’s degree teacher training courses during the summer term of 2019/2020. Therefore, we moved our on-campus STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics) related courses to schooling at home. For their course examination, students designed outdoor trails in groups with the educational technology MathCityMap based on an integrated STEAM approach. Hence, they combined STEAM with real-world situations (e.g., monuments, marketplaces, playgrounds). The tasks within the trails required the use of technologies such as augmented reality (AR), digital modelling (e.g., GeoGebra 3D Graphing Calculator), and GPS. Analogue measuring tools (e.g., triangle ruler) were also used in the task designs. We collected data from 21 trails with 259 tasks from 49 pre-service teachers to analyse the effects on professional growth in STEAM education. Through hierarchical cluster analysis we identified three different clusters with patterns regarding STEAM in outdoor trails. This paper will describe a pedagogical framework for the integrated STEAM approach to designing and evaluating outdoor trails. Furthermore, we will explain patterns pre-service teachers developed during this professional development.

Keywords: 

STEAM, Outdoor trails, Professional development, Pre-service teachers, Higher education

Pawat Chaipidech 

Faculty of Education, Khon Kaen University, Thailand // c.pawat@kkumail.com

Tanachai Kajonmanee

Faculty of Engineering, Khon Kaen University, Thailand // tanachai.kajonmanee@kkumail.com

Kornchawal Chaipah

Faculty of Engineering, Khon Kaen University, Thailand // Smart Learning Innovation Research Center, Khon Kaen University, Thailand // kornchawal@kku.ac.th 

Patcharin Panjaburee

Institute for Innovative Learning, Mahidol University, Thailand // patcharin.pan@mahidol.edu 

Niwat Srisawasdi

Faculty of Education, Khon Kaen University, Thailand // Smart Learning Innovation Research Center, Khon Kaen University, Thailand // niwsri@kku.ac.th

ABSTRACT: 

Several previous studies have indicated that teachers require knowledge to enhancing technology-integrated instructional practices for representing and formulating the content to students. Therefore, the technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) framework is essential for advancing teacher professional development (TPD) programs while using technology-integrated teaching. Moreover, personalized learning systems have been increasingly recommended to improve the quality of professional teacher development. This TPD study was based on andragogy theory and the TPACK framework. This study implemented an andragogical TPD outreach program integrating a TPACK-oriented personalized learning system as a 2-year face-to-face training mode for TPACK-focused science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education to in-service STEM teachers from secondary schools in northeastern Thailand. They were employing a pre-post intervention design method, this paper reports on an ongoing longitudinal investigation of the influence of the TPD program, disseminated in four 2-day intensive training workshops, on 153 in-service teachers’ TPACK development. The study measured participants’ changes of the cognitive outcome on how to teach STEM situation-related photosynthesis, friction, light and vision, and composite materials with digital technology using multiple-choice TPACK tests embedded in the proposed personalized learning system. The results showed in-service STEM teachers’ incremental TPACK improvement from the implementation of the TPD intervention. The results indicate the alleged superiority of the integrated personalized learning system as a critical part of promoting TPACK development in STEM education.

Keywords: 

Personalized learning, Mobile technology, Andragogy, Teacher training, STEM education