Wick et al. present the use of a binary classification model as a strategy to identify and help under-prepared engineering students in early foundation STEM courses. Student performance data were used to design the model and the interventions were found to achieve an overall improvement for the high-risk engineering students in terms of success and retention rates. Firetto et al. provide another example of innovations and explore the implementation of an online module regarding effective study strategies and its association with better exam performance in an introductory anatomy and physiology subject class. Besides student success, the impact of technologies on students' interest and learning experience in science/STEM education is another high-priority topic in the research agenda in the field. Tablatin et al. investigate the use of Minecraft to cultivate Filipino students' STEM interest and the effects of deploying game-based activities on students' learning experience. Gopabala Krishnan et al. highlight the potential of a graphical user interface tool in simplifying the learning process for students in STEM disciplines. Oss Boll et al. report on the design and development of synthetic biological circuits by 3D printing. The novel STEM educational resources demonstrate its usefulness as a teaching tool to facilitate students' learning and understanding of synthetic biology, a relatively new discipline in science. The work of Doore et al. provides another example of harnessing emerging technologies for graphical representations in STEM education. They report on the design and evaluation of a universally accessible multimodal system for both students with and without visual impairment, in the communication and interpretation of graphical representations.

Teachers' professional development and competencies, as well as students' essential skills such as digital literacy and self-organization of knowledge, have influential contributions to the sustainable development of education in this digital and intelligence era. Thyssen and Meier report on a comprehensive analysis of teachers' perceptions toward the use of 3D printing technology in classroom teaching in Germany, with regards to skill development and didactic integration of the technology in subject lessons. Li presents the pedagogical frameworks, development and implementation of open education resources to address the issues of inadequate sense of STEM identity among students when teaching foundation computational social science incorporated with data science methodologies and social science theories. Halonen et al. describe the use of AI-directed speech recognition technology in a science education context and analyze its role in the co-construction process in terms of self-organization of knowledge. The work of Liu et al. underscores the need for cross-cultural collaboration and the prominence of innovation mindset for students to address global issues in the future. Their study examines maker education through thematic analysis and identifies key educational themes such as transdisciplinary creativity and skills in relation to sustainability.

In view of the evolving landscape of education with the emergence of new technologies and innovations, periodic review and analysis are necessary and serve as important resources to identify emerging trends and research directions. Muilwijk and Lazonder report on the systematic review of studies comparing virtual and physical investigations, and the relevant findings from the meta-analysis regarding the implications on STEM teachers in the option for virtual or physical investigations. Chakraborty et al. present a bibliometric analysis of prior research attempts in the contexts of key components such as learning methodologies and competencies for the mapping between Industry 4.0 and Education 4.0.