Comparison of the STEM-Waldorf Teaching Technique and Su Ji Pu Li Principles for Mathematics Teachers for Cross-Subject Area Teaching Purposes

Abstract

     The purposes of this mixed method research were as follows: 1) to apply the STEMWaldorf teaching technique for cross-subject area teaching by Su Ji Pu Li principles for mathematics teachers and 2) to compare the learning outcome from the teaching performance by STEM-Waldorf technique in cross-subject area. The quasi-experimental with semi-action method was used for this study.

     The data were collected in the academic year 2018. The areas of the research were Wat Thamanao Elementary School in Suphanburi province and Wat Khokket (Sermsomboonwong) Elementary School in Samut Songkhram province. The populations used for this study were the 37 students in Grade 6. All students in the populations were also the samples of the research. The samples were from both 2 schools; 18 students
were from Wat Thamanao Elementary School and other 19 students were from Wat Khokket (Sermsomboonwong) Elementary School. They were 100 percent of the whole classes in each school. The research instruments that were used for the study were as follows; a STEM activity named “Pillar Designing”, pretest and posttest assessments and the Arts with Culture subject lesson. The data were analyzed by non-parametric statistics. The Wilcoxon signed rank test was used. The research finding showed that 1) the teachers could use the Su Ji Pu Li with the STEM-Waldorf technique for cross-subject area teaching and 2) the posttest score was higher than the pretest score at a 0.05 statistical significance level. These findings can be used for mathematics teachers who must teach any non-mathematical subjects as their guidelines.