What is STEM education?

STEM education aims to help students solve problems with a multidisciplinary perspective and gain knowledge and skills in a holistic perspective. (Şahin, Ayar, & Adıgüzel, 2014). STEM education is an interdisciplinary approach which covers the whole process from kindergarten to higher education (Gonzalez & Kuenzi, 2012).

For example, according to Lederman and Niess (1997) interdisciplinary approach means an undivided whole and it looks like the compound in chemistry. These compounds have different features than the elements they are made up of. Similarly disciplines create a clearer and much different image when they are integrated (Lederman & Niess, 1997). STEM education can be considered as an education covering high quality learning combining disciplines, making use of current information in daily life, increasing life skills and superior and critical thinking (Yıldırım and Altun, 2015). STEM education encourages students for the direct learning (Çakıroğlu, 2016). For instance students can produce what they design mentally and use what they learn in different problems (Özdemir, 2016). Works related to STEM education shows the importance of STEM education for the reason of transforming theoretical knowledge of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics into application and products (Çorlu, 2013 Erdoğan, 2013). Today is a time where technology based education is inevitable. Therefore individuals are expected to be productive and inventive. This foresees that individuals need to combine Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics to be able to show their productivity (Akgündüz, et. al, 2015). Also the fact that STEM education has an infrastructure highlighting an technological and engineering approach and provides children an interdisciplinary approach puts STEM in a very important place in today's information and communication era (Akgündüz, et.al, 2015). STEM education is an education approach which helps students gain creative problem solving skills (Roberts, 2012).