Role of Teacher and Student in the Context of STEM Education: A Review

Abstract

Integrated STEM education is increasingly framed as practice-centered learning in which students investigate phenomena, design solutions, and communicate evidence-based reasoning across disciplinary boundaries. This review synthesizes recent peer-reviewed scholarship to clarify how the roles of teachers and students shift in such environments and why these shifts are pivotal to learning quality and equity. Drawing on practice-based, sociocultural, and identity/agency perspectives, the article conceptualizes “roles” as dynamic patterns of participation enacted through discourse, tool use, assessment routines, and classroom norms. The synthesis indicates that the teacher’s role extends beyond content delivery to include designing coherent integrative tasks; orchestrating inquiry and engineering design while sustaining productive uncertainty; cultivating discourse norms that support explanation, critique, and iteration; and implementing formative assessment practices aligned to processes as well as products. In parallel, the student’s role expands from procedural compliance to epistemic agency, including problem framing, evidence use, collaborative knowledge-building, and iterative refinement of ideas and designs. A central finding is that teacher and student roles are mutually constitutive: student agency depends on teacher-designed opportunities and positioning practices, while teacher facilitation depends on classroom cultures that legitimize student sense-making and distribute authority. The review also highlights the growing influence of digital technologies, including emerging AI supports, in reshaping participation and feedback loops, while cautioning that technology can widen inequities if access and norms are not intentionally structured. Implications are outlined for STEM teacher education, classroom design, and future research, emphasizing role-sensitive approaches to equity, assessment, and sustained professional agency.