Students grade 7
STEM development
with enjoyable
activities : Case
Study
By : Pratompondsawan Nakwad, Sawarak
Pengudom
Introduction
In 2016, the group of former students of
Singapore-Math program in Matthayom One
requested that they need more authentic lessons
because the program was serious, strict and
required a lot of works in paper. They needed
something new that can be related to community
and real life. They also needed to improve their life
skill, participated in dynamic activities and relaxed
in classroom.
The director of Watputtabucha School,
Mrs. Budsabong Promchan became aware of the
necessity of changing. She had a meeting with
academic staff and started planning for new
curriculum. Integration in four subjects; Science,
Technology, English and Math is the result from
meeting. We changed the E in STEM to be English
instead of Engineering because it is more
appropriate for Matthayom One students and we
can improve their English communication skill.
Now, we have used the curriculum for
one academic year. We will discuss about the
process, result and problems that we found during
the classroom throughout the academic year.
Purpose of STEM teaching for Grade 7th.
From the students request and to reduce
students paperwork, teachers and directors had
conclusion that we were going to integrate four
subjects in one course. We made new curriculum
based on STEM teaching method and Nature-Based
Learning. And the study topic for Matthayom One
is How to Plant Rice.
The skills that we need students to acquire
are English communication skill, Information
searching and proving accuracy, teamwork,
responsibility and creativity.
The topic for teaching which was How to
Plant Rice came from students. They presented
their idea because they wanted to know where rice
came from, how the farmers grew rice, the life in
local community and how to work in the field.
They were eager to learn because it was the topic
that they chose by themselves and they were all
interested.
Questions of research
1. How students work in group?
2. How do they solve the problems in their
group?
3. How do the students apply information in
classroom to their project?
4. What do STEM teachers experience in
teaching?
Process of teaching in classroom
Before teaching, it required a lot of work.
Because we had four subjects that must be
integrated in one class. We also planned for
activities outside the classroom when they had to
plant rice in the field. For math, we planned to let
students work on measurement, ratio, percentage,
and statistic. To work in the field, they must search
information about kind of rice, materials to use for
planting, kind and quality of soil, and perfect time
of the year to plant rice. They must have skill in
science such as assumption, observation, data
collecting, and conclusion of the information they
received. For English, they should be able to use
vocabulary related to topics given, write or speak
simple sentences and search information using
English language.
Outside classroom is also important for
learning. According to Nature-Based learning,
schools that use outdoor classroom support students
gains in social studies, science, language arts, and
math. (American Institute Research, 2005) Playing
in nature helps them develop creativity and
problems-solving skills (Kellert, Stephen. 2005).
This teaching method could relate to STEM
teaching because science in STEM could be the
study the natural world.
First impression is always important. All
teachers in class had to work together and
welcomed students with kind and warm greeting.
First activity of the semester was Listening
Comprehension between teachers with students and
students with students. They worked in pair, one
would talk about anything and one would only
listen. This activity would change their behaviour
in communication. Teachers could work with them
easily when we wanted them to do something. We
did not have to shout loudly.
After first week of warm greeting and
giving the course overview, we started the class by
Check-In. The benefits of this activity were ;
teachers will know how students feel in that day,
teachers can decide what to do (reduce the
activities if a lot of them feel tired or have lots of
homework to do), teachers can let them drink water
before starting other activities. Students would trust
their teachers, felt free to express feeling and even
asked for advice in the future.
Then, teachers would give the topic for
searching. Before they used computer or
smartphone, teacher suggested keywords for
searching in Thai and English. They would work in
group, some went to search on the Internet, some
checked the information and some prepared to
create the flowchart for presentation next week. If
they had any problem, they could ask teachers to
help them.
When they presented their work, the
whole class had to listen intentionally. After
finishing the presentation of each group, other
groups could give compliments or friendly
suggestion. Then all teachers would take turn to
give feedback about students work, so they could
use feedback and suggestion to improve their work
for next week.
After searching and learning in classroom
for one month, teachers and students went to work
in the field. We have ½ Rai for planting rice in the
back of school. We had to build everything from
empty space. It was hard work but most of students
was fun to participate. We plant rice in circle
cement pipe, each group planted into two pipes.
They had to take care of their own plants, materials
and collect data.
Challenge
In STEM lessons, students address real
social , economic ,and environmental problems.The
problems that we were found the both real world
STEM problems and environmental problems.The
first real world STEM problems was found about
the contents, task , responsibility and time.
The Contents problem was the students
can link their information but they can not apply
with their real situation through their tasks had
done many assignments except STEM lessons.
However they had not much responsibility on tasks
each other.The last real world STEM problems
was inclounding time because it was limited time to
do tasks same rush hour then they couldn't do any
However was not only problem person
included technology problem such as can not
internet connected and storage
Result
1. How students work in group?
From 12 groups of students (6 students per
group), teachers observed that they faced some
problems during the process of working. For
example, they have conflict between members in
compromise and share the works, some member
did not really participate and help their friend;
especially in the field which was hard work, some
tasks did not complete such as statistics and rice
products, and students have a lot of homework
from other subjects to do, so they did not have
more time to sit with their group and work together.
Teachers had to talk to them and found the
way to resolve. We spoke with each group that had
problem. We found that they had pressure about
studying other subjects and other teachers in school
complained about their behaviour. They are in
Matthayom 1/1 and 1/2, so some teachers had high
expectation of them. STEM teachers must design
the activities to relax them in the classroom.
Students engaged in enjoyable activities
which required them to corlabolate with members
in their group. For example, in the Ping-pong
game, they must use chopsticks with a ping-pong
ball, walk across the room, and put it on the top of
bottle. They must make a plan to send their
members to challenge with other group.
When the activities was over, teacher
would ask them what they have learnt from the
activity. They shared opinions that they enjoyed
laughing with their friends, planning the way to
finish the task, sharing ideas with friends and
working together.
Four or Five weeks passed, students had
improved the way to work in their group. Due to
the enjoyable activities, they could apply working
skill to the tasks in class. Teacher let them do self-
assessment and found that now they were more
pleased about working in group than the past.
2. How do they solve the problems in their
group?
Because of many homeworks from other
subjects, they tried to finished STEM tasks in
classroom and did not take home as a homework..
They seperate their works into searching, checking
accuracy, and flowchart making (write, draw
picture and coloring) and each member had their
own responsibility.
For activities outside the class, at first
there were only boys who worked hard such as
digging the ground, carrying soil and watering pot.
Some girls also helped but some girls did not do
anything because the weather was hot and they did
not like to walk on the muddy ground. After
teacher talked to them in the group to make them
see the importance of helping the group, have
service mind and be sympathized, they had meeting
to plan what they were going to do and then their
works were more effective.
For activities inside classroom, they
developed 4C to finish the tasks. Teachers had
already put 4C in enjoyable activities. For example,
in Easter Egg game, each group picked five little
eggs with vocabulary in each one. The group must
used five words to make one story, draw a picture
on the chart and present the story in front of the
class. They would use critical thinking to
determined the relationship between five words,
creativity skill to design the story and drawing,
collaboration skill to plan and work with their
members in group and communication skill to
create message with clearly meaning to present for
the class.
For academic activities, they used skills
that they required from other activities to apply.
For example, they learnt about Sufficiency
Economic and had to design farming system
according to specification area into 30, 30, 30, and
10 proportion. They achieved the tasked by using
4C effectively.
3. How do the students apply information
in classroom to their project?
Students had a project to present at the end
of the semester. For the semester, they had to
present what they had learnt and completed the rice
product. But, due to the lack of caring, they
couldnt have the rice product. Some of rice that
they had planted was dead and some of them had
lean kernel. From this result, they had to find the
reason and presented in the presentation day.
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