STEAM foundations for students… What thoughts cross your mind when you think about that?
I started thinking about STEAM foundations for students quite a lot a few years ago. I was teaching students at a school beginning to use STEAM more and more as a focus. The students were so green to STEAM, but what I found out, the more we discussed and talked about STEAM, (science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics) was that they were actually having a difficult time just understanding these concepts separately.
So I have a task for you…
Try this with your students…
Ask your students these questions:
What is science? What is technology? What is engineering? What is art? What is mathematics?
What do you believe they will answer? Quite often I get the deer in headlights look when asking these questions. Which brings me to one of the necessities I believe to be one of the STEAM foundations for students that needs to be developed…. the language of STEM/STEAM.
How do I build the language of STEM/STEAM?
This is simple, but takes consistency. I know that consistency with this concept works to build STEAM foundations for students! So how do we do it? I have two simple strategies for you to put into action now: STEAM Corner or STEM Corner (whichever your focus might be) and my other favorite, See, Think, Wonder.
Basically, this is a daily/weekly strategy in which you create discussion on images, phenomena, a science experiment demo, a piece of literature or work of art… you name it… just make an observation! Read more specifically about STEAM corner and See, Think, Wonder in a few previous blog posts on the I Heart STEAM website.
Other necessary STEAM foundations
Once students can really grasp all of the STEAM elements and truly describe what they mean, they begin to really generate connections between them ALL! What other STEAM foundations for students need to be built? Here are a few: 1. Students need to begin to really understand the perspectives of experts within each area of STEAM… How do they think? How do they see the world? What do they notice? This strategy is super important! We want students to know that they are scientists, engineers, and so on… so they need to know what they do and how they think!
2. Promote FAILURE as an ok experience! We learn more from failure than any experience we can go through. Our students need to be ok with failure. This is HARD for teachers… so hard. Why? Well.. it takes time to let students fail through a task and then figure out how to improve. We also don’t want students to fail and give up a nudge in the right direction too often.
3. Students need purpose for the content you are teaching. We do this by creating student ownership and excitement with HOOK and HYPE!
Hook and Hype for STEAM foundations for students
What in the world is hook and hype? What does it have to do with STEAM foundations for students? You can’t build good foundations without creating lasting memories. When I introduce every STEAM element.. science, engineering, and so on… I make sure they get excited by starting with a hook day for each one. When I introduce science, I might explode something or show them something fascinating… which leads back to STEAM Corner and See, Think, Wonder. It’s like a never ending display of fireworks. It keeps me on my toes, but builds student excitement and engagement that leads to student ownership later. That’s why it’s a foundation.
Would you like an exact plan on how to build STEAM foundations? I am so excited to announce that I will be hosting a Masterclass on this topic: Roadmap to STEM/STEAM! It’s just around the corner so get in on the list now! Spots are filling up fast because it’s totally FREE to all!
