About Program
At the high competency levels of the large-scale assessments such as PISA, TIMSS, it has been expressed the importance of individuals who have a capacity to produce knowledge that have economic value. One of the requirements for cultivating the individuals who have these proficiencies is to having persons equipped science, technology, engineering and mathematics skills. Lots of recent reports expressed the importance of education for shifting knowledge-based society with the aim of attaining individuals these skills (TUSIAD,2014; NRC,2011). The classroom teaching practices in science, mathematics, and cognitive courses are crucial to attain these kinds of skills to the K12 students. With this master program, science, mathematics, and cognitive teachers are going to find an opportunity to understand the nature of STEM education, to aware of developments of STEM education in the world, to develop of STEM Education activities, and to apply these activities in the classrooms.
Goals
In the lots of curriculums of the countries, the courses are designed with regard to the STEM Education in elementary and secondary level. One of the main aims of the teacher education programs in lots of countries was designed to attain their teachers understanding of STEM education. With the proposal of this interdisciplinary science, technology, engineering, and mathematics master program, it was aimed to provide an opportunity for science, mathematics, and cognitive teacher to gain understanding and skills about STEM Education. In our country, short-term teacher training certificate programs are employed to reach these aims. There is not such a master program which the main focus is the STEM Education. Therefore, this program will allow teachers and teacher candidates to gain STEM Education skills. And also, teachers and teacher candidates are going to find opportunities to do research in the field of STEM Education.
Summary of Program Outcomes
Students who will gruaduate this program are expected to be able to understand the theoritical backgrounds and the nature of STEM Education, develop an understanding on the process of interdisciplinary teaching and learning, produce and apply learning activities based on STEM Education, develop and apply formative assessment strategies in STEM Education, discover how to create STEM Education problems, find out the ways to encourage the students to code and create their own robots in the scope of blended learning, analyze the characteristics, strengths and weaknesses of existing STEM education programs, initiatives and policies at local and national levels, Creates suitable learning environments that facilitate the development of students' critical, constructive, creative thinking, and problem solving skills.