Teaching and learning STEM disciplines

A process perspective

Resumo

STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, mathematics), have the particular feature of being based on theoretical and practical skills. Learning in the laboratory naturally focuses on the student who must do or create something, alone or in a small group, while benefiting from the teacher's supervision to gain good practices. In this context, the project’s status at the end of the session enables the students to assess the quality of their works themselves. During the project’s development process, they face the resistance of the problem that requires a solution. They use their know-how, mobilize the knowledge acquired in all areas of life, and solicit the resources of their group to optimize cognitive resources. Discoveries during the process and the project’s completion, together with the repetition of the exercises, provide intense pleasure and boost self-esteem. The next challenge is to transpose the dynamics from the laboratory to the hall. This challenge is reinforced by the emergence of a new generation of students, for whom interacting with the Internet and virtual agents is a natural part of their lives. In this perspective, Whitehead's thinking remains a resource that reminds us of what is essential in the educational process. It allows us to preserve this essential in today’s societal change. We show that the educational process has two important dimensions. The first relates to a crucial event in the individuation process, namely, the advent of a phenomenon of synesthesia in the subject, in the form of an acute awareness of what is important to her or him. This event is a turning point in the student's life. The second relates to the methodology, which, in Whitehead's case, takes the form of the ternary rhythm of education. We illustrate these two dimensions in a biology teaching project we call inverted funnel. Inspired by Whiteheadian pedagogy, the project takes advantage of the dynamics of romance-precision-generalization, and we hope that it will contribute to the emergence of the turning point in the student. This event is the very starting point of the educational process, the one that leads to the very nature of the learner. Such watershed not only purports to determine the direction of her or his educational process, but also that of his or her entire life.