The development and implementation of an interdisciplinary STEM course for upper secondary schools

摘要

Since 2007, a new interdisciplinary course 'Nature, Life and Technology' (NLT) has been taught in more than 200 Dutch senior high schools by teams of teachers, in addition to the regular courses in mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology and earth science. The goals of NLT are to motivate students for a career in science and technology and to show them the coherence between the traditional STEM subjects. Teams of teachers and experts from research and industry developed more than 80 interdisciplinary modules. This paper describes the development and implementation process, focusing on the design principles in the development of standards, development of materials, professional development (PD), implementation at schools and monitoring activities. From this experience, several lessons can be learned for comparable challenges.