Authentic Context in STEM Education: Biology

Containment


In spring 2020 in many countries the questions arose: 

Will the hospitals be able to treat everyone?

In spring 2020 many schools went into their first lockdown because of the Covid-19 pandemic. That was only the first of many lockdowns. But how did they come about? In March 2020 many schools were shut down due to the rapid spread of the corona virus. Officials were afraid, that there would be so many seriously ill people at once, that the hospitals would not be able to treat them all. Some teachers did not agree. They were sure, that in any case all could be treated - even without closing schools. 

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AC in this Example

Characteristics of AC

How to use AC in STEM Ed

The corona pandemic and it‘s consequences affected the whole society. There is a fear of new restrictions due to further pandemics. Therefore, the question of which key figures and which measures work is of particular importance.

Authentic Contexts are characterized as follows: 

  • Authentic contexts are curricular topics integrated in tasks about real world problems that are meaningful to students.
  • These tasks should gain the student’s attention, increase their interests and willingness to learn.
  • Several different competences should be needed to solve the task.
  • The relevance of STEM-skills to solve the task should be evident
  • The benefit of collaboration between students should be clear.

Generic tasks should be used, i.e., tasks which product might be an outcome in the real world (of work) or, at least, are similar in such a way that it illustrates how real world (of work) problems are solved. 

Optionally, these tasks include…

  • ... employment of digital resources.
  • … descriptions of STEM - job profiles connected to this task.
  • … Project based learning!

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