Innovation is very important for countries. It is an interactive and multidisciplinary process and tightly connected to life. In our time, there is a clear consensus among stakeholders on the importance of STEM education to the innovation (Kuenzi, 2008).

Well, what is STEM education? STEM is an abbreviation of the “Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics” words. It is a curriculum based on in an interdisciplinary and applied approach. STEM integrates these four disciplines into a cohesive learning paradigm based on real-world applications.

STEM is called in Turkish “FeTeMM”. It is an abbreviation of the words “Fen, Teknoloji, Mühendislik ve Matematik”. The STEM (FeTeMM) studies are novel for Turkish teachers. That’s why, teachers education about STEM (FeTeMM) is very important. There are many training programs for science and math teachers about STEM in Turkey. One of this training was in Ege University in Izmir on 15^th – 26^th  June 2015 and 2^nd – 8^th September 2015. It was about introducing STEM (FeTeMM) education to science teachers. There were collaborations between the Izmir Directorate of National Education and Ege University in this training.

Training at the Ege University in Izmir

The trainers were three academicians who work on STEM (FeTeMM) education in the Ege and Dokuz Eylul University. During the first two days, they talked about on the following topics.

• Multidiciplinary Interactions in Education
• STEM (FeTeMM) Education
• What is the STEM (FeTeMM) literacy
• The importance of STEM (FeTeMM) Education and its components
• STEM (FeTeMM) Education in Turkey
• Engineering education in STEM and Engineering Design Process
• 5E Learning Cycle
• Design Process Applications
• STEM (FeTeMM) Education in Secondary School Science Curriculum
• STEM (STEM Fields) Content-Designing the Event-Applications

After this two days, the applications in STEM (FeTeMM) started. They were:

• Designing an electric torch. It is about electricity in our life. The aim of this activity is getting pupils to realize the electricity in their lives.
• Designing a catapult. It is about force and the motion unit in the science curriculum.

In the last day, there were three training activities.

• A talk about the integration of STEM (FeTeMM) activities to the science curriculum.
• Designing a lesson plan about a STEM (FeTeMM) activity.
• Presentation of the STEM (FeTeMM) lesson plans.
• There was a debate about STEM (FeTeMM) among the teachers in the end of the training program. The consensus after the debating is “STEM (FeTeMM) Education is very important to catch up on modern science world. We must make STEM activities in our lessons to train the engineer and scientists of the future. We must attend to the training program like this to improve our knowledge and skills about STEM (FeTeMM) Education.” The training programs are still go on to improve the knowledge and skills of Turkish teachers in TurkeyStay with STEM (FeTeMM).

Emre Uygur – Scientix Deputy Ambassador of Turkey

• Bibliography: Kuenzi, J. J. (2008). Science , Technology , Engineering , and Mathematics ( STEM ) Education : Background , Federal Policy , and Legislative Action.http://www.tstem.com/

Article written by: Emre Uygur, Scientix Deputy Ambassador

Tags: life long training, teacher, training program

One Response to “Teacher training about STEM (FeTeMM) education in Turkey”

1. Giovannina Puzzu says: 2 March, 2016 at 09:09

   si si belo figo molto belo figo si