Abstract:

A current focus in schools is STEM education, which prepares students for successful employment and post-secondary studies that require unique and more-technically advanced skills through teaching and learning in the areas of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This approach is grounded in problem solving, discovery, and exploratory learning, which requires students to actively engage in a situation in order to find its solution. Students engage in STEM learning in many different ways, with technology and digital resources playing an important role, because students learn concepts most effectively when exposed to interactive resources like digital videos, audio and graphics, scientific data sets, virtual manipulatives, and simulations. Students need exposure to current and emerging technologies appropriate for STEM learning, but also instruction on how to interact with and utilize digital tools to solve problems and improve learning

The prominence of technology in STEM education provides leadership opportunities for teacher librarians. As information specialists and educators, teacher librarians can engage students and support teachers by providing access to and instruction for utilizing digital resources, encourage students in authentic inquiry practices, and provide real-world collaborative learning opportunities to promote STEM learning. Yet, teacher librarians must be prepared to lead in the integration of technology, especially when it comes to supporting STEM education.

This report of the research presents the results from a three-year project to provide professional development for teacher librarians on leading and supporting STEM education in their schools. This study utilized a pre/post-test quasi-experimental design to determine the influence of the PD on teacher librarians’ knowledge, skills, and abilities to support STEM education. The survey was developed based on the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (T-PACK) framework (Mishra & Koehler, 2006). This framework identifies three types of knowledge instructors need to combine for successful technology integration—technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge. The influencing factors and implications for curriculum development to better prepare pre-service teacher librarians to lead through the integration of technology in order to address the needs of a new generation of learners will be discussed.

Keywords:

STEM, teacher librarians, technology integration.