Prerequisites for Elementary School Teachers before Practicing STEM Education with Students: A Case Study

Purpose: Implementing STEM education in the earlygrades is a more effective way to encouragecreativity, problem-solving, and innovation. There isa need for elementary teachers to implement STEMeducation to integrate and contextualize science,technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) intheir teaching. This research aims to examine theprerequisites for elementary teachers beforepracticing STEM education with students.Research Method: This study is a case study andimplementations were undertaken with six teachersover 13 weeks and were delivered in theoretical and practical ways. Open-ended pre-test and post-test, interviews, diaries of both researcher andparticipants, worksheets, lesson plans, assessment tools and engineering design process (EDP)reports were used as multiple data sources to triangulate findings. Thematic analysis wasutilized using open coding and cross coding of data.Results: Several codes emerged from the analysis that were grouped under five salient themesas follows: understanding STEM, instructional gains of STEM education for teachers andbenefits of STEM education for students, instructional prerequisites for teachers andconditions of schools to perform effective STEM education.Implications for Research and Practice: Theoretical and practical integrated STEM educationcan be planned in a long-term manner for the education program of elementary schoolteachers consisting of problem-based, inquiry-based and project-based learning enriched withcontent knowledge integrated STEM practices.