STEM: Teaching Materials for Facing the Industrial Revolution 4.0 Era

On 2 April 2019, to be precise on Tuesday last week, the Chemistry Education study programme 
held a public lecture in the theatrical room of the Faculty of Science and Technology, UIN 
Sunan Kalijaga. The public lecture was attended by Chemistry Education students from 
the 2015 cohort to the 2018 cohort. Before the public lecture began, attendance was taken first and 
doorprize coupons were handed out to the participants. This public lecture featured two 
speakers from UNY, namely Dr. Pujianto, S.Pd., M.Pd., and Dr. Antuni Wiyarsi, 
S.Pd.Si., M.Sc., and the moderator was Mr. Muhammad Zamhari. 
The first material was delivered by Dr. Pujianto, who presented a talk 
entitled Implementation of STEM in Educational Research. He explained that STEM is 
several scientific disciplines fused into one to solve a problem. STEM is 
a combination of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, and by combining these four 
disciplines it is hoped that something (life) can be understood better and that 
the welfare of society can be improved. In fact, STEM has already been taught in 
schools, but because several matters are still limited, students have not been able to 
get adequate STEM education. So far STEM has focused only on vocational 
schools, and 29% of teachers state that they teach science about 2 days a week, meaning that this time limitation is what makes STEM teaching in schools 
inadequate. 
Schools usually teach things that refer too much to the existing theory, 
so that in such learning students’ creativity is restricted too much. Students are not given 
the opportunity to express their own creativity, but are instead required to refer 
to the correct way of solving problems according to theory, and for roughly 
20 years schools have focused on a process of eliminating students’ creativity and have focused only on tests, grades, 
university entrance exams, and so on. STEM teaches students to be able to survive in 
life, regardless of the profession they choose to pursue. STEM also teaches 
critical thinking and problem solving through skills used throughout 
life. And the emphases that STEM provides are also expected to enable students to 
produce new technology. Improving science and mathematics alone is 
not enough to create new technology, so improvement in 
experiences centred on design, innovation, engineering, and technology is needed, and creativity, 
inventiveness, ingenuity, and imagination are very much needed in making use of STEM. 
Next, the second material was delivered by Dr. Antuni Wiyarsi, who 
explained that STEM is an analytical ability to examine a topic, 
develop a project and its timeline, and draw conclusions from research. It is knowledge 
for breaking down complex scientific systems into smaller 
parts, recognising cause-and-effect relationships, and defending opinions using facts. Dr. 
Antuni stated that a soft skill is a personal quality, habit, attitude, and 
social behaviour that makes an individual a good employee. Like Mr. Pujianto, Dr. 
Antuni also said that the soft skills that must be applied in STEM are 
teamwork, creative ability to find solutions to problems, and experience in 
mastering technology. 
The aim of students learning STEM is for them to be able to communicate effectively 
in writing, evaluate themselves and reflect on their learning, take part in various 
projects or competitions, and develop a set of learning habits that will 
guide students to become successful lifelong 
learners. STEM education places more emphasis on developing students’ creativity so that they can create new innovations. Dr. 
Antuni delivered material on Techniques for Developing STEM-Based Research Instruments. 
She explained the shift from CTE (Chemistry through Education) to ETC 
(Education through Chemistry). 
Before the public lecture ended, a question-and-answer session was opened, with the first three fastest questioners being allowed to ask. After the question-and-answer session, 
the next activity was the distribution of doorprizes to the questioners as well as to the 
other participants. The public lecture was also enlivened by an acoustic group from the 
Chemistry Education 2018 cohort. The event went smoothly and the students who took part did so 
enthusiastically 
and actively asked questions.