Development of an analytical thinking based online STEM curriculum and investigation of its efficiency

We live in a World with more population, global connections, technological progress, and large-scale problems than ever before in the human history. In order for human beings to cope with these challenges, they need to have 21st century skills including innovative and high-level thinking skills. Countries have included the STEM approach in their education policies in recent years to equip their students with 21st century skills. In this study, it is aimed to design and implement an online STEM curriculum as a separate discipline for Science and Art students aged between 9 to 12. Another aim of the study is to reveal the change in the level of analytical thinking skills in students with the application of the online STEM curriculum design. The study was designed according to the mixed method evaluation design. In this design, case study was used in the needs analysis phase; exploratory sequential mixed design was used in developing measurement tools, and embedded experimental mixed design was used in the implementation and evaluation of the curriculum. The research group of the study consists of students in the age group of 9-12 (fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh grade), consisting of 31 in total, who continue their education at the Science and Art Center in the 2020-2021 academic year. In the research, quantitative data were obtained with the analytical thinking skill scale, STEM evaluation rubric, and analytical thinking skill observation form developed by the researcher, while qualitative data were obtained with researcher diaries, semi-structured focus group interviews, student diaries, and peer assessment form. It was found out that the online STEM curriculum design applied for 12 weeks improved the analytical thinking skills of the students. There was no significant difference in the development of analytical thinking skills in terms of male and female students, educational status of parents and grade levels. According to the curriculum development needs analysis, it has been seen that teachers' and students' opinions about analytical thinking and STEM are insufficient. At the same time, after the application of the online STEM curriculum design, the students showed an improvement in the skills of identifying the problem, acquiring information, brainstorming, design, product development and presentation.