STEM⁺ Lab

STEM (Education) is a pedagogic and curricular paradigm for educating students in four subject areas — Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics — in an interdisciplinary manner. This educational initiative not only aims to strengthen students’ ability to integrate and apply knowledge across the “S”, “T”, “E”, “M” disciplines in real-world contexts, but also to nurture their “4C skills” advocated in the 21st century. The 4 “C”s are (a) Creativity and innovation, (b) Critical thinking and problem solving, (c) Communication, as well as (d) Collaboration (http://www.p21.org/our-work/p21-framework). We add a superscript “+” into the acronym (i.e., STEM⁺) to denote:

1. any new integrations of technology-enhanced learning and teaching approaches (e.g., flipped classroom, gamified learning, computer-supported collaborative learning, etc.) into STEM, underpinned with the generic aim of promoting the pedagogic and/or curricular effectiveness; and
2. any new educational initiatives grounded on STEM (e.g., STEAM, STREAM, Maker, etc.), underpinned with the generic aim of nurturing students’ “4C” skills.

In collaboration with Lok Sin Tong Yu Kan Hing Secondary School (http://www.ykh.edu.hk/), we have co-established the first STEM⁺ Lab in Hong Kong in June 2017. The objectives of the Lab are threefold:

1. To develop innovative STEM+ pedagogies and curricula for school education;
2. To investigate the effectiveness of the STEM+ pedagogies and curricula through rigorous empirical research;
3. To advance the learning theories and teaching practices of STEM+.