The evaluation of preschool teachers about STEM education and in-class applications

THE EVALUATION OF PRESCHOOL TEACHERS ABOUT STEM EDUCATION AND IN-CLASS APPLICATIONS The objective of this research is to analyze the ideas of the teachers having in-service training on STEM education related to this education and to do detailed research on their implementations. The study group of this qualitative research comprises of 11 pre-school teachers who were teaching at schools of Ministry of National Education in the spring term of 2017-2018 academic year and who were chosen by the Ministry Of National Education for in-service training. In this study, semi-structured interview form was used. Content analysis method was applied to interview data and descriptive analysis method was applied to observation data. Findings indicate that although the pre-school teachers having STEM trainer training have a positive attitude towards STEM education, they have been experiencing difficulties in implementing science software and engineering design in the classroom, The preschools don't have sufficient facilities for the STEM education implementation and the time to practice is insufficient. According to the research findings, in order to help pre-school teachers acquire STEM education skills, they can be assisted to experience fully every dimension of STEM education. Pre-school teachers should experience science, technology, engineering and mathematics implementations separately and they should be exposed to the combinations of these implementations in a practical environment with examples. The pre-school teachers having the training should be supported by specialists on new training regularly. Keywords: Pre-school, STEM trainer training, STEM approach, pre-school teacher