Promotion of High-Order Analytical Thinking Skills using NCOM Simulator through STEAM Education

This research paper describes the promotion of high-order analytical thinking skills using NCOM simulator through STEAM education for learning and teaching of telecommunication engineering course. The STEAM based teaching process of communication network subject includes presentation, simulation, discussion, conclusion and assessment steps. In simulation process, the high-order analytical thinking skills of learners were encouraged using the developed diverse co-teaching activities. The developed MATLAB based NCOM simulator to be as a teaching aid in communication network analysis education consists of three parts: resonant circuit, two port network and filter analysis. The quality of the NCOM simulator and developed STEAM based teaching activities evaluated by five experts was more appropriate level. After implementing the NCOM simulator in classroom at Department of teacher training in electrical engineering, Faculty of technical education, King Mongkut's University of Technology North Bangkok, the efficiency of learning and teaching process was in accordance to the standard criteria of Meguigans's formula. In conclusion, the STEAM based teaching process can be used to encourage learners to have the high-order analytical thinking skills that are consistent to expected learning outcome of telecommunication engineering curriculum.