Prof. Dr. Gultekin Cakmakci from Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey gave a general lecture at UNY Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. He presented Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). STEM has been the latest approach that is growing rapidly lately. This program has attracted UNY lecturers and students. Most of students are from chemistry education and physics education. Prof. Dr. Gultekin started his presentation on STEM introduction.
As the the head of the STEM Education National Program in collaboration with the European commission in the STEM PD Program, Prof. Dr. Gultekin explained that STEM offers integrated learning that involves a variety of disciplines. STEM develops systematic / planned thinking skills (scientist), reverse thinking (engineer), thinking with models and modeling (technician) and mathematical and computational thinking (mathematician). Therefore through STEM students are trained to develop thinking skills and problem solving skills, not just in charge of knowledge content. The activity continued with a workshop.
The workshop invited lecturers and students to choose the STEM project to be undertaken. There are 5 activities provided: ‘home application’; fact vs fiction '; ‘Thermocouple’; ‘Flip flop’; dansalt and ice. Participants were very enthusiastic about attending the workshop because they found many new ideas to introduce science to students.
At the end of the activity, group representatives demonstrated their work and received overview from Prof. Gultekin. He stated that STEM products such as simple hair dryers that were developed would be students' initial thoughts to develop entrepreneurship. Thus, going forward STEM Education will not only have an impact on improving the quality of education but can initiate the emergence of creative endeavors. (uni / witono)
