Integrating STEM Into a Methods Course to Enhance Democratic Thought in Social Studies Teacher Education

• In Event: Roundtable Session 40
  In Roundtable Session: Democratic Citizenship in Education SIG Paper Discussion

Abstract

A well-educated 21st century citizen—one who endeavors to reach out to the diversity of the global community, will need foundational knowledge of how to approach solving complex, cognitively demanding, and ill-defined problems. By teaching pre-service teachers to design, implement, and reflect on how STEM content might be integrated into the social studies, we intend to provide pre-service teachers with a public space for developing their own scholarship of teaching and for contributing to the process of implementing democratic thought into K-8 classrooms. Specifically this research investigates a two-step model for integrating STEM within the social studies (SS-STEM) into a social studies methods course. The paper concludes with a five-stage, practiced-based hierarchical model for social studies teacher education redesign.

Authors

• Caroline R. Pryor, Southern Illinois University - Edwardsville

• Rui Kang, Georgia College & State University