Using Mathematical Modeling for Integrating STEM Disciplines: A Theoretical Framework

Year 2019, , 628 - 653, 13.12.2019

Muhammed Fatih Doğan , Ramazan Gürbüz , Zeynep Çavuş Erdem , Seda Şahin

https://doi.org/10.16949/turkbilmat.502007

Abstract

The main
goal of STEM education is to provide students with knowledge and skills in
science, technology, mathematics, and engineering through interdisciplinary
approaches. However, perspective on the nature of STEM approaches and how it
should be implemented in the classrooms without losing discipline integrity are
still not uncovered and stay as important challenges for both educators and
researchers. In this paper, we introduce a theoretical framework that can shed
light on how to engage students effectively in STEM education by providing
mathematical modeling as a tool for integrating different disciplines. Thus,
this framework is for designing, implementing, and evaluating mathematical
modeling thinking within an interdisciplinary nature. Furthermore, we provide
an example of the interdisciplinary mathematical modeling task with
hypothetical student engagement in the process and analyzed the student's
thinking with our framework. Although the focus of this paper is mainly about
integrating mathematics and science, we believe that our framework can be
applied to all STEM disciplines.  We conclude
that interdisciplinary mathematical modeling framework might be an important
tool to overcome some of the challenges that stressed in the literature since
it increases the transfer capacity of STEM-focused knowledge and skills to
real-world scenarios by presenting problem situations in a real-world context.

Keywords

: Interdisciplinary mathematical modeling, mathematical modeling, Mathematics and Science Education, STEM education, STEM integration

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