A CONTENT ANALYSIS AND LEARNING ACTIVITIES EARLY CHILDREN BASED ON STEAM EDUCATION
Anita Yus and Salim
Department of Early Childhood Education
Faculty of Education, Universitas Negeri Medan
Medan, Indonesia
e-mail: anitayus.dikdas[at]gmail.com
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Negeri Medan
Medan, Indonesia
e-mail: waksalim2019[at]gmail.com
Abstract
STEAM education (science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics) is currently being studied by experts and in Indonesia, STEAM for early childhood begins to be studied. STEAM makes it easy for children to carry out various scientific processes (Colker and Simon, 2014). For children, the scientific process is a natural process (DeJarnette, 2018) that can increase childrens learning involvement and encourage creative and innovative thinking (Robelen (2011). This study aims to: 1) analyze the content learning used in kindergarten based on the STEAM education, and 2) identifying learning activities through strategies used by kindergarten teachers based on STEAM learning. This descriptive study was conducted in Medan City involving 50 kindergarten teachers. Data was collected using a questionnaire followed by focus group discussion (FGD). Data were analyzed by descriptive techniques and qualitative analysis, namely by linking data obtained from the FGD. The results of the analysis show that 1) the learning content used in kindergarten has not met the principles and characteristics of STEAM education because the material used is still separated, and 2) almost all the learning activities seen from the strategies used by kindergarten teachers are not yet in accordance with the principles and the characteristics of STEAM education. The results of this study need to be followed up to find out the factors that caused STEAM learning to be implemented in kindergarten.
Keywords: STEAM learning, STEAM education content, STEAM learning stages and STEAM learning activities for early childhood
Topic: Education and Research Global Issue