DEVELOPING AN INQUIRY AND HANDS-ON TEACHING MODEL TO GUIDE STEAM LESSON PLANNING FOR KINDERGARTEN CHILDREN

Abstract

When contextualizing educational methods, teachers can focus on constructivism to develop inquiry materials as STEAM subject matter for use in schools. However, there is little research concerning what STEAM teaching resources teachers view as inquiry with hands-on STEAM instructional material for use in kindergartens. Therefore, this research used a spiral developmental course design with action research to apply a teaching inquiry and hands-on STEAM model focusing on lesson development for kindergarten children via a one-year workshop. The lesson development process of this research included a total of six stages, allowing 24 participating teachers to analyse the STEAM elements from their original lesson plans, then make revisions according to a model, including: prediction, do/observation, quiz/discussion, and explanation/ transfer (PD/OQ/DE/T). After the initial lesson plan was completed, teaching experiments were conducted, and the lesson plan was adjusted through reflection and revisions based on the suggestions of domain experts during the implementation process. Finally, 48 PDOQDET inquiry and hands-on based STEAM lesson plans were developed. Thus, it is proposed that the inquiry and hands-on i-STEAM modules developed using the PDOQDET approach can represent exemplars illustrative of an enriched design constructivist paradigm to support students’ i-STEAM learning in kindergartens. Keywords: early childhood education, hands-on learning, inquiry teaching, lesson plan design, STEAM