Özet:

Today, STEM education has become prominent with the concept of producing individual gaining importance and has taken its place in the curriculum of many countries. In this context, pre-service elementary school teachers who are future practitioners of the program should be equipped with STEM training. The aim of the current research is to improve the STEM awareness and engineering perceptions of pre-service elementary school teachers through activities related to the Engineering Design Process, one of the STEM applications, and to elicit the views of pre-service elementary school teachers about these activities. The participants of the study consisted of 39 pre-service elementary school teachers (28 female, 11 male) attending the second year of a classroom teaching program in a university. This study was designed as a mixed model. The data was collected with STEM Awareness Scale and Draw an Engineer Test. In addition, at the end of the implementation, the students were asked to offer an opinion regarding the activities that were performed. As a result, it can be stated that the STEM awareness of the pre-service elementary school teachers positively developed. Also, there was an increase in the number of pre-service teachers who drew female engineers. In addition, in the post Draw an Engineer Test, the preservice teachers offered more views concerning the characteristics that an engineer should possess. It has been suggested that it is inevitable to cooperate with different organizations in the implementation of STEM education.

Anahtar Kelimeler: