Interdisciplinary STEM education foundational concepts: implementation for knowledge creation

Interdisciplinary thinking is essential to understanding and solving real-life problems and requires multiple disciplinary viewpoints. Research into STEM education highlights that it promotes an interdisciplinary learning process integrating science, mathematics, engineering, and mathematics knowledge and skills. However, STEM definitions are varied, and implementation recommendations are scant, resulting in diversity in the development and implementation of the learning process. This study critically analyses the literature to determine the fundamental concepts of STEM education and STEM discipline integration. Our analysis discovers six key components of STEM education, encompassing the integration of discipline, utilization of multiple representations, engagement with realistic and relevant problems, application of the engineering design process, encouragement of active collaboration, and emphasis on student-centered learning approaches. Then, we transform these key components to a practical learning process. The STEM-DTaM (STEM with Design Thinking and Makerspace) learning model consists of seven steps. We then unfold how this proposed learning could facilitate interdisciplinary thinking construction.