Science Teacher Development in STEM for Indonesia's Curriculum

Change

Nurul F. Sulaeman

, Atin Nuryadin

, Lambang Subagiyo

, Feby Zulhiyah

and Syayidah Dinurrohmah

Physics Education Program, Mulawarman University, Samarinda City, Indonesia

Bunga Bangsa Islamic High School, Samarinda City, Indonesia

Keywords: Indonesia, Science Teacher, STEM.

Abstract: To shorten the gap in the learning process that was disturbed during the pandemic, the Indonesian government

established a new Indonesian curriculum in early 2020. On the other hand, the implementation of an integrated

approach to STEM education with real-life scenarios is crucial to be understood and implemented by science

teachers. Although many teachers have experienced joining STEM-related activities, the implementation is

quite low. Therefore, the need for professional development in STEM education to support the

implementation of the new Indonesian curriculum is needed. This paper presents an integrated approach to

STEM education developed in the context of a collaborative professional development program implemented

in synchronous and asynchronous meetings. The program aimed at providing teachers with knowledge and

skills to develop STEM-integrated tasks to be implemented in junior high school science classes. This study

used a quantitative–qualitative approach to answer the research questions, using mixed methods to collect

data. Participants are 40 junior high school teachers who participated in the program for one month in the

school year 2022/2023. Based on data collected from worksheets, discussions, and interviews, it was verified

that teachers recognized the importance of obtaining training in STEM education. This type of professional

development was very relevant and improved their knowledge and skills to implement STEM hands-on

practices in class. Finally, teachers could recognize the need to link STEM education with the need to change

the student science learning process in line with the new Indonesian curriculum. Our recommendation for

further research is that teachers need a quality understanding of curriculum that aligns with specific Science

Learning Outcomes (SLO) and the ways to achieve that alternatively through STEM education.

1 INTRODUCTION

STEM education is widely used because it supports

-century skills (Rachmawati et al., 2023; Onsee &

Nuangchalerm, 2019; Stehle & Peters-Burton, 2019)

and promotes high student engagement in science (N.

F. Sulaeman et al., 2022). It is a place where students

can learn by thinking and making through their joyful

exploration and collaboration (Balakrisnan et al.,

2023). Former researchers stated that STEM could

enhance students' idea comprehension, literacy, and

creativity due to its relation to everyday life (Nugroho

et al., 2021). Implementing STEM in class needs to

consider teachers' mastery of STEM-related concepts

and their readiness. However, the readiness of

teachers is relatively low (Asiroglu & Akran, 2018;

Wijaya et al., 2021). Teachers who are interested in

STEM still lack confidence in their ability to teach the

transdisciplinary concept in STEM elements [11].

Teacher readiness as the central role factor of a

successful STEM class needs to be considered.

Although the introduction to STEM education has

been conducted for Indonesian science

educators(Rahmasuwarma & Kumano, 2019), the

fixed duration of science lessons still became one of

the challenges(Arlinwibowo et al., 2023). In line with

the need to improve STEM in class, the new

Indonesian curriculum was introduced in early 2020,

namely the "Merdeka curriculum". This curriculum

has an open opportunity to have integrated projects

among subjects (Fitriyah & Wardani, 2022; Nugraha,

2022). This new Indonesian curriculum could be a

new and innovative strategy in the Indonesian

education system since teachers also clarified the

Sulaeman, N. F., Nuryadin, A., Subagiyo, L., Zulhiyah, F. and Dinurrohmah, S.

Science Teacher Development in STEM for Indonesia’s Curriculum Change.

DOI: 10.5220/0013421800004654

Paper published under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Humanities Education, Law, and Social Science (ICHELS 2024), pages 527-532

ISBN: 978-989-758-752-8

527

importance of a flexible curriculum, such as an

engineering-based one related to students' projects in

science class (Margot & Kettler, 2019). Merdeka

curriculum then brings more flexibility curriculum in

a class by giving time allocation to integrate subjects

and concepts related to real-life experiences

(Mahardika et al., 2021). This new curriculum

emphasized the integrated project that makes it

possible to design a transdisciplinary project with a

longer time span.

Regarding the innovative ways of the new

Indonesian curriculum, it needs to adhere to the

teachers' readiness and mastery of concepts related to

STEM. However, the readiness still does not meet the

prerequisite. Thus innovative ways to increase

teachers' readiness in STEM education are needed

(Diana et al., 2021). A number of studies concluded

the positive impact of teacher preparation programs

and training on their understanding of STEM

concepts and readiness to become professional

teachers (Song & Zhou, 2021; Toto et al., 2021). The

teacher preparation program as the professional

development for teachers could improve learner

outcomes, increase teacher motivation, and provide

some benefits for schools as institutional education

(Angus Cole, 2021). Therefore, it needs to be

designed related to the real curriculum

implementation to gain the highest impact on

teachers' readiness and give an overview of students'

projects.

This paper presents an integrated approach to

STEM education based on environmental issues as

scenarios and developed in the context of

collaborative Professional Development (PD)

targeted to junior high school science teachers. The

following research questions are addressed to guide

the study: What are teachers' perceptions about

science learning outcomes? What are teachers'

perceptions of STEM PD? What are teachers' ideas

for planning STEM projects?

2 METHOD

In this section, we start by introducing the

Collaborative Professional Development (CPD),

participants, and then followed by our research

methodology.

2.1 Collaborative Professional

Development for Science Teacher

Our research is part of continuous collaborative

professional development among science teachers in

a city around East Kalimantan Province, Indonesia.

The program entitled "Professional Development for

Science Teachers in STEM Education for Supporting

Indonesian Curriculum" includes one-week

workshops with altogether 36 hours duration (Table

1). The workshops aim to support science teachers'

development of knowledge and skills in science,

technology, engineering, and mathematics in relation

to the new Indonesian curriculum. The curriculum

was introduced in 2020, and gradually more and more

schools are starting to use this curriculum. Science

topics prepared in the STEM projects related to water

and plants.

Table 1: CPD Workshops Schedule.

Workshops Date Duration

New Indonesian Curriculum and the Science

Learning Outcome

14/02/2023 2 hours

Re-introduce STEM Education 15/02/2023 2 hours

Engineering Element through Paper Tower Project 15/02/2023 2 hours

STEM Project 1

Water Turbidity Measurement

15/02/2023 4 hours

STEM Project 2

Water Filtration

16/02/2023 4 hours

STEM Project 3

Eco-

rint

16/02/2023 4 hours

STEM Education and Its Representation in new

Indonesian curriculu

17/02/2023 4 hours

Designing Module for STEM Project 17/02/2023 4 hours

Re-analyze the Module with School Context 18/02/2023 4 hours

Final Presentation 19/02/2023 6 hours

Total 36 hours

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Table 2: Participants Demographic.

Gender Number of Participants Percentage (%)

Male 6 15

Female 34 85

Total 40 100

Table 3: Worksheets List.

Worksheet Group Individual

Science Learning Outcome

√

Example of STEM Project

Water Turbidit

Measurement

√

Water Filtration

√

Eco-

rint

√

Your Own STEM Project

√

2.2 Participants of Collaborative

Professional Development

The CPD was developed in partnership with the

Science Teacher Association, corporate social

responsibility, and a national university in East

Kalimantan province. The participants consist of 40

science teachers in Junior High Schools interested in

developing their professional knowledge and skills

related to STEM education. Participants'

demographics can be seen in Table 2.

2.3 Methodology of Research

This study used a mixed methodology with a

qualitative approach and also a quantitative approach.

The qualitative methodology with an interpretative

approach by some authors during the workshops

(Cohen et al., 2007). This part of the research aims to

understand a phenomenon in its real context from the

participants throughout the workshop schedule. Then

the quantitative approach was utilized to find the

trend of participants' responses to worksheets through

statistically descriptive (Fraenkel et al., 2012). The

identities of our participants are fictitious to preserve

their identities.

In each section of the workshops, participants

were invited to fill in individual worksheets or group

worksheets. At the end of the program, participants

presented their individual written reports about their

STEM Project ideas. All participants answered

voluntarily with all the worksheets (Table 3). All the

worksheets were previously validated by authors

involved in each worksheet's constructions.

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In this section, the results and discussion are

presented based on the participants' responses to the

five worksheets during the workshops in Bontang

City, East Kalimantan, Indonesia.

3.1 Perspective of Science Learning

Outcome (SLO)

The topic of science learning outcome is presented at

the beginning of our workshop. This section is

essential because the alignment between the STEM

workshop with the new Indonesian curriculum

became the foundation of the whole program. We

found that 85 percent of participants were familiar

with the new Indonesian curriculum from the first

individual worksheet. Due to the gradual

implementation of the new curriculum, some

participants stated that they were still using the

former curriculum for this semester. From the SLO,

most of the participants realized that the SLO in the

new Indonesian curriculum opens the flexibility of

arrangement and multi-disciplinary projects.

F15: In the 2013 curriculum, science learning

outcome (SLO) and the flow of SLO have been

determined, while in the Merdeka curriculum,

teachers can design their own flow of SLO.

F17: Merdeka curriculum emphasizes the profile of

Pancasila (which is six main skills for Indonesian

that are also translated from 21

-century skills)

and direct action of these values through projects.

In addition, the material can be flexible according

to the student's ability in school and can be

continued to discuss in the following semester. In

Science Teacher Development in STEM for Indonesia’s Curriculum Change

529

contrast, the 2013 curriculum requires all material

to be taught in one specific semester.

Since the new Indonesian curriculum transformed

into certain novelties compared to the previous

curriculum (Mulyadin et al., 2023), however,

participants had already known the comparison in the

essential contents, freedom of students, teachers, and

school in the implementation, and employing

activities through a project that emphasizes the profile

of Pancasila. This perspective of SLO could be

beneficial in developing the lesson plan, including the

active learning classrooms. The active learning class,

such as the project activity, positively related to

students' learning outcomes (Mueller et al., 2015).

Through the workshop, science teachers' professional

development of knowledge and skills in STEM

concerning the new Indonesian curriculum could be

supported.

3.2 Perception of STEM PD

Most of the participants have experience with STEM

PD in the former curriculum. However, they argue

that it is difficult to implement the STEM approach in

their regular science teaching because of the

limitation of time and the strict SLO in the former

curriculum. This perception of confusion between

beneficial but challenging to implement is also found

in science teachers in many other countries, such as

the US (Margot & Kettler, 2019) and Europe (Thibaut

et al., 2018). Through a series of workshops, teacher

perspectives start emerging from the disciplinary

understanding of science concepts to

transdisciplinary understanding among STEM

elements. Although global research stated that

engineering across K-12 is emerging as a significant

area in STEM (Abdulwahed & Hasna, 2017; Wijaya

et al., 2021), its presence within integrated STEM

education on science teachers' perspective deserves

heightening. Through the group and class

discussions, participants stated that the engineering

element is less understood among the STEM

elements.

The specific session in the PD about engineering

tried to clarify the iterative process of engineering

that consists of two main steps, which are (a) defining

problems by specifying criteria and constraints for

possible solutions, (b) optimizing the solution by

systematically trying and testing, and then making

decisions. Broadening the role of engineering design

and elevating it to the same level as scientific

inquiry(English, 2017) has become an interesting part

that needs further concern. Although engineering can

link the mathematics, science, and technology

elements, engineering still requires greater

recognition in these experiences.

M2: First time getting to know about STEM

project in cooperation with the New Indonesia

curriculum (project to strengthen the student

characters), which didn’t yet apply in my school. The

effectiveness of teamwork through sharing gives an

insightful experience.

F6: Through the STEM project, students could

improve soft skills by practicing the flow of STEM,

starting with defining problems, how to reach the

solution, and preventing further similar ones. This

transformation from focusing class on the material to

students’ process is needed, especially for

implementing technology in class, which needs the

teacher's supervision.

Teachers’ significant increases in their knowledge

to teach STEM could be seen by the improved

understanding of STEM processes related to

encouragement from the curriculum to conduct

project-based learning. They could understand the

main concept of STEM by participating in the

scenario of the project based on teamwork. They also

did the improvement on their social skill which were

part of the learning outcome in the new curriculum.

Projects have the engineering part of the new

curriculum which also the elements of STEM

(Syaputra et al., 2023). The engineering aspect linked

with the project was also successfully promoted to

teachers by their process in doing the projects. They

also mentioned that PD gives them new insights into

the importance of using technology in class to answer

the challenge of 21st-century skills.

Most teacher participants, like common science

teachers in Indonesia, did not have experience taking

STEM courses during their teacher preparation

program (N. F. Sulaeman et al., 2022). Therefore they

mentioned that PD and the opportunity to collaborate

with other teachers increase their ability to integrate

STEM content into their curriculum effectively.

Teachers reported significant increases in their

confidence, knowledge, and efficacy in teaching

STEM after attending professional development

programs. Variation among teachers' age, gender,

experience, and former PD of STEM education may

influence their support and enthusiasm for STEM

education initiatives.

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Table 4: Planning STEM Project by Participants.

Project Name Frequency STEM Element

Eco

rint I S-E-M

Trash: Reduce, Reuse, Rec

cle II S-T-E-M

Balance Nutrition II S-T-E-M

Green School II S-T-E

3.3 Challenges of Making a New STEM

Project

At the end of PD, participants designed their own

STEM project in groups. The topic could be a

continuation of the STEM project example in Table

1, or their new idea based on their understanding of

SLO and school context. The result was analyzed by

the authors and summarized in Table 4. From the

result, most of the group proposed their original ideas

for the STEM project, and only one group proposed

to continue and re-design the eco print project. The

projects related to environmental issues were mainly

found because of the relation with awareness of the

environment in the new Indonesian curriculum. These

ideas showed their understanding of the crucial real-

world context in STEM projects [26] beyond science

content only (Dare et al., 2021). Although the linkage

among STEM elements is mostly found, some project

planning did not show components of technology or

mathematics clearly.

Although the PD last workshops facilitated a

group of teachers to design their own STEM project

idea, the challenges to implement it were still found

during the group discussion. The most common

difficulties science teachers state in implementing

STEM are teachers' insufficient comprehension of the

elements of STEM and the linkage among them.

Many arguments arise during the discussion, such as

"Where is the engineering element on our STEM

project?". Moreover, the other challenges revolve

around the duration of conducting a STEM approach

to learning, low self-efficacy in its implementation,

the lack of facilities, and limited support in the school

schedule and funding to conduct a STEM approach to

learning.

4 CONCLUSION

Data collected from worksheets, discussions, and

interviews verified that teachers recognized the

importance of obtaining training in STEM education.

This type of professional development was very

relevant and improved their knowledge and skills to

implement STEM hands-on practices in class.

Finally, teachers could recognize the need to link

STEM education with the need to change the student

science learning process in line with the new

Indonesian curriculum. Our recommendation for

further research is that teachers need a quality

understanding of curriculum that aligns with specific

SLO and the ways to achieve that alternatively

through STEM education. PD in STEM education

needs to be a longitudinal study to support not only

conceptual understanding and planning but also the

implementation and reflection of the result.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The authors express their gratitude to the support of

Mulawarman University, Indonesia for providing

funding for this research and PT Kaltin Nitrate

Indonesia which through their corporate social

responsibility (CSR) program for funding the

continuous professional development (PD) for

science teachers.

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