Major Symposium on Models and the Future of STEM Teacher Education

The word ‘models’ has been used with the Pandemic throughout the world, with over 249 million social media hits in the last three months, yet many of our STEM teachers and students are not readily equipped to reason with these models themselves or teach with them.

In an online symposium July 31, 2020 attended by over 80 scholars in ASEAN countries, Professor Samia Khan introduced “model-based teaching in science education”, its history from science and its connection to science education. The webinar was attended by researchers and students of Kasetsart University, Thailand, Hanoi National University of Education, Vietnam, and Universitas Sultan Ageng Tirtayasa, Indonesia.

Professor Khan also discussed recent applications of this approach in a course on preservice science teacher education with technology.

The mii-STEM international research team presented the mii-STEM “Model-based Integrated Inquiry STEM” research program which focuses on model-based teaching and inquiry for STEM teacher education.

A panel discussion addressed questions around challenges of implementing STEM, advantages and disadvantages of model-based teaching, and the limitations of models.