Creative spark and critical rigour By Rosie Clarke, Editor
are not just useful in any future learning or career pathway, but also appeal to most industries.
The tech boom and a global skills shortage has redefined educational priorities over the past decade as STEAM industries grow.
STEAM-based teaching and learning exists to enrich existing subject areas with a more dynamic application of tools and technologies. A STEAM teaching mindset, for example, encourages the use of coding, laser cutting, and robotics into your History, English, or Arts classroom.
Each area alone encompasses a vast range of potential future pathways for students than schools can draw from in their project design – for instance, engineering encompasses civil and chemical, as well as electrical and mechanical. Teachers should refresh their understanding of all these different fields when they consider STEAM curriculum design.
28
© stock.adobe.com
Rather than teach Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics as separate subjects, STEAM schools integrate these learning areas with real-world applications and project-based pedagogy.
Why build STEAM programmes into your curriculum? As well as helping to produce tomorrow’s designers and engineers, STEAM programmes help develop innovative mindsets, critical thinking, and
problem-solving abilities that ensure our students become creators, not just consumers, regardless of their chosen field. STEAM learners become flexible thinkers, and the emphasis STEAM programmes place on creative problem-solving develops thinking strategies that
TEACHING RESOURCES
And vice versa, when thinking about science education: “Integrating arts activities can decidedly enliven the curriculum content, make lesson outcomes more successful and interesting to both teachers and students, and introduce powerful and inspired creative thinking into the teachinglearning process,” note Sousa and Pilecki in From STEM to STEAM: Using Brain-Compatible Strategies to Integrate the Arts.
How to build a STEAM classroom Constructing a STEAM classroom requires flexible, Term 1, 2022 | school-news.com.au
© stock.adobe.com
STEAM Classrooms:
