**Author details**

*Theorizing STEM Education in the 21st Century*

education, and its limits are widespread.

STEM approach to teaching and learning [12].

**4. Conclusions and implications**

insights on integrated STEM education.

the curriculum field. Teachers may feel difficult to have all the STEM-relevant knowledge in a short time, and they are not willing to learn the concepts or content rapidly [12]. In other words, it is hard for them to get adapted to an integrated STEM approach to teaching and learning. The third challenge is the traditional school structure that limits the depth of integrated STEM education. As we discussed earlier, school context is an influential factor in the ideal integrated STEM

Obviously, these barriers and challenges cannot be resolved instantly due to its complexity. Instead, they can be analyzed and explained by our ideal model. In fact, teaching integrated STEM needs a relatively relaxed environment, such as freedom of time and spaces, some supports from principals, colleagues, and parents of students. Any small details in enactment or implementation have a great influence on practices. Except for the expectations, the other three elements together with contexts relate to these three barriers: teachers are lack of discipline knowledge beyong the fields they teach and their teaching strategies do not match with what STEM integration needs; learning system provided is not wide and are constrained by school context. Obviously, as Nadelson and Seifert suggested, there needs to find a way to reconcile the historical structure of schools, curriculum, instruction, and assessment to create a school culture and environment that supports an integrated

The significance of this chapter lies in its potential contribution to the existing knowledge system of the integrated STEM education in K-12. First of all, the ideal model we proposed in this chapter is different from many existing models, in that, it is not limited in the integration among discipline knowledge instead it involves four elements, suggesting an integrated STEM education system. Within this system, the interconnection of these elements is flexible and would be efficient when provided with proper contexts. That is to say, each part of the model upholds the others, and in turn, is supported by them. Compared with discipline-based STEM integration discussed in the literature, this model is inclusive. With this model in mind, researchers may realize which part should be improved or revised so as to achieve a more holistic and broad integration. Additionally, for practicing teachers, it might serve as a guiding framework that will assist them to think about how to conduct integrated STEM education in their classroom. Thus, it suggests a possible way to resolve the issues that we have identified earlier and to bridge the gaps between theory and practice in implementing integrated STEM education in K-12. In what follows, we discuss the implications of this chapter and provide some

One implication that can be drawn from this chapter is that much more research is needed to understand and analyze the integrated STEM education in specific contexts. For education researchers, this ideal model can be used as a theoretical framework in conducting empirical research in the field of STEM education. For instance, research studies can be done to examine the effectiveness of the implementation of an integrated STEM program. Another suggestion is to do research from practicing teachers' perspectives as they are the most responsible people conducting STEM integration in practice. Based on the understanding of practicing teachers' attitudes, the difficulties, challenges, and barriers they encounter when integrating various domains in practice, some practical and tangible measures might be taken to effectively and efficiently improve their STEM

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instruction.

Bing Wei\* and Yue Chen Faculty of Education, University of Macau, Macau, China

\*Address all correspondence to: bingwei@um.edu.mo

© 2020 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
