TITLE:
International Comparison of STEM Teacher Education
AUTHORS:
Zhaohao Nian
KEYWORDS:
STEM Education, Teacher Education, Comparative Research
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Access Library Journal,
Vol.9 No.8,
August
17,
2022
ABSTRACT: With the development of science and technology in our society, more and more countries have carried out the exploration of STEM education, and at the same time STEM teacher education has been placed in an important position. This study combines the reasons and policy backgrounds of STEM teacher education in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia and comprehensively uses qualitative research methods and comparative research models to analyze and finds that the similarities among the three countries mainly include: policies and incentives for STEM teacher education have been introduced from the national level, and all advocate the joint efforts of the community to train STEM teachers; Meanwhile, the differences among the three countries are mainly found to include: the United States has developed a STEM teacher education model with diversified and flexible teachers’ choices; the United Kingdom has established a community model of STEM teacher education from government departments, universities, and businesses with a national network of joint training. Australia mainly focuses on improving teachers’ STEM subject content and pedagogical knowledge and identifies a STEM teacher education model with professional teacher learning as the core. The comparative analysis of this study to provide international experience for STEM teacher education in other countries.