STEL Practice and the Integration of Tinkering and Take Apart in the Elementary Classroom

Over the past two decades the Standards for Technological Literacy (STL) (ITEEA, 2000) have challenged educators to search for strategies to implement and address improvements in technological literacy rates among P-12 students. Capobianco, Yu, and French (2014) acknowledged “the integration of engineering practices in the science classroom as early as grade one shows potential in fostering and sustaining student interest, participation, and self-concept in engineering and science” (p. 275). The updated Standards for Technological and Engineering Literacy (STEL) (ITEEA, 2020) are organized into three STEL structural branches that combine to create a pedagogical and domain knowledge configuration for technology and engineering teachers (ITEEA, 2020). Although the three STEL organizational branches are at the forefront, this study attempts to focus on and identify the relationship between the practices surrounding the eight core STEL standards: systems thinking, creativity, making and doing, critical thinking, optimism, collaboration, communication, and attention to ethics. These specific practices are designed for the integration of STEM in the classroom and may be advantageous toward promoting technological and engineering literacy through tinkering and take-apart teaching methodologies. Acknowledging that the teacher may be the STEM integration decision maker in the classroom, this study attempts to discern the link between STEL, tinkering and take-apart teaching methodologies, and pre-service elementary teacher candidates’ self-efficacy in the STEM disciplines of technology and engineering education as well as providing implications for future practice in the elementary classroom.