Teachers and Teaching in STEM Education

Dear Colleagues,

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education refers to the cross disciplinarity of two of more of the domains in terms of knowledge, practices, and/or dispositions with the goal to imbue diverse 21st century core competences. While STEM education in integrated forms has gained momentum across the world, many questions for the scholarly community remain unanswered. Who is a STEM teacher? How is a STEM teacher different from non-STEM teachers? How does one become a STEM teacher? How can teacher educators prepare STEM teachers? How are STEM lessons different from other lessons? A scholarly approach to researching these issues may be described as an epistemic turn in the field of teacher and teaching education research. A direct import of learnings from outside of STEM education may or may not adequately serve this purpose if we see STEM as a new or transformed creature with its own set of understandings about teaching and learning. We underscore the importance of applying an intellectually situated lens, to examine questions about teachers and teaching that have been addressed for more than five decades to STEM education. This Special Issue, focusing on the teaching and teachers of STEM education, encourages studies that unpack these deep-seated interests with integrated forms of STEM education in mind.

This Special Issue includes (and is not limited to):

• Literature reviews, empirical studies, and theoretical papers;
• Qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods studies; Topics related to theme in K12 settings (e.g., preschool, elementary schools, middle schools, higher education, post-formal schooling years, formal learning contexts, informal learning contexts) and beyond.

Examples of topics are:

• Effective approaches or strategies (e.g., constructivist, pragmatic, or transformative) in STEM teaching;
• Critical perspectives in examining tensions experienced by teachers designing and enacting STEM curriculum;
• Examining the making of a STEM educator from an identity lens;
• International collaborations between STEM educators (e.g., teacher educators, teachers, and school leaders) in STEM capacity building programmes;
• Impact between constructs such as STEM teacher beliefs, attitudes toward STEM, and experiences in STEM teacher on student learning outcomes;
• A review of studies about STEM teachers and teaching.

Dr. Tang Wee Teo
Dr. Aik-Ling Tan
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Education Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• STEM education
• cultural sociology
• gender studies