“Innovative Learning Environments and Pedagogies Conference for Industry 4.0 was held in Bahçeşehir University (BAU) by cooperation of BAU and The Association of Education for the Future (GED as the acronym). Also at the conference, the graduation diplomas were presented to the teachers who aim to educate generations with abilities developed in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields, within the scope of “STEM Leader Educator Training Program” generated by BAUSTEM.
The opening speeches of the conference held in Beşiktaş Campus on Sunday, 22nd May were done by Enver Yücel, BAU Chairman of the Board of Trustees and Asst. Prof. Dr. Sinem Vatanartıran, GED Vice President. The latest developments on STEM Education were shared by Prof. Dr. Robert M. Capraro, faculty member of Texas A&M University, among the best known educators in USA and leaders of STEM education; Dr. Zsolt Lavicza, faculty member of Cambridge University, one of the creators of GeoGebra program which brought a computer-aided dynamic approach to STEM Education and is used by more than 25 million teachers and students; and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sencer Çorlu, BAUSTEM Center Director who taught abroad mathematics, science and technology and returned to Turkey to work on popularizing STEM-FeTeMM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education.
WHAT IS STEM?
Asst. Prof. Dr. Sinem Vatanartıran, GED Vice President stated “STEM, as we call in Turkish ‘FeTeMM’ for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics is a concept used in international education community. It is in fact not a recent concept which particularly started with The President of USA, Barack Obama. It is a movement started to support students from young ages to promote their career choice. But later it went much beyond. Because apart from guiding the students on professions related to these fields, the question of ‘how the education on these fields should be’ arose. It is a system focused on projects, design and creative idea on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics by putting forth their interactions with each other with a more holistic approach. It is an area where we can learn more about basic concepts in science and mathematics and adjoin technology, design and engineering dimensions to it. This is what we understand from STEM”.
“We have given training on this to 45 teachers from 6th, 7th, 9th and 10th grades. We have particularly trained science and mathematics teachers and focused on how they will plan their lectures again with this approach, how they will define this as an education philosophy and how they will integrate these disciplines from now on by working in collaboration. We have presented a 92-hours of applied training that took about 1 year. Today 2 American professors prominent in STEM education will share the latest developments on this field. And later we will join with 2 speeches as BAU STEM. Following this we’ll give their diplomas to the teachers who participated in this training.” said Vatanartıran, also quoting the STEM Leader Teacher Education Program.
STEM LEADER TEACHERS GRADUATED
“We are talking about an education model which has not yet defined either in Turkey or the world. We, as academics, also learn from the teachers by their sustainable work. We believe that our teachers are the ones to spread this work. In short, by STEM, we mean a process that goes from the bottom to the top and hopefully affects first the curriculum and finally the ones making the politics”, said Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sencer Çorlu, BAUSTEM Center Director, stating their belief that STEM education should start after the training of the teachers.
Also at the conference, the graduation diplomas were presented to the teachers who aim to educate generations with abilities developed in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields, within the scope of “STEM Leader Educator Training Program” generated by BAUSTEM.
TR
