Trends and strategies for conducting effective STEM research and applications: a mobile and ubiquitous learning perspective

Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) has been recognised by educators as an important educational objective in the 21st century. It provides a new vision of education by encouraging school teachers to engage students in problem-solving, critical-thinking and creative-thinking tasks using the knowledge and skills learned from multiple disciplines. While the effectiveness of STEM has been recognised by educators, the challenges of applying it to school settings have also been indicated, such as the difficulties in designing cross-disciplinary tasks and measuring students' learning performances. Mobile and ubiquitous technologies have been regarded as a potential facilitator which enables learners to learn across contexts with access to learning resources in anywhere and at any time. The use of these new technologies could provide new perspectives and opportunities for developing STEM activities and studies. This paper highlights the challenges as well as the strategies for implementing STEM activities in school settings and designing STEM research. It proposes several models for guiding researchers and schoolteachers to develop STEM learning design are proposed. In addition, it provides several strategies and measuring tools for developing in-depth experimental STEM studies.