What is STEAM education and why is it important?
STEAM, which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Mathematics, is contemporary learning that represents not only the future of education, but also an organic step in revolutionizing student learning being truly interdisciplinary and authentic.
The costly mistake of passive learning
This is because STEAM weaves in critical subjects of future problem solving with the clear intent of advocating students as innovators, creators, and curators of their learning–and not just passive consumers of assembling knowledge put in front of them. This has been a costly mistake of education, and the harmful effects of this were foretold a century ago by the great mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead.
Education with inert knowledge is not only useless, it is above all harmful”
Promoting teacher collaboration
Since STEAM involves many areas of knowledge, it is vital that teacher collaboration be emphasized and encouraged throughout all initiatives and endeavors to successfully launch STEAM in your school. Creating an atmosphere among teachers that is collegial and communal is a key element in how students will have to navigate the complex problems put forth by STEAM activities. As such, teachers have to model and mirror this 21st century outlook–that global issues and problems are everyone’s responsibility to solve in safe, group dynamics.
Changing assessment methods
Naturally, with students working in a manner which is completely different from the static ideas of the past, our assessment of the learning must change. What do we value? What skills should we observe? What methods of assessment reflect the collaborative and humanistic spirit of STEAM? Well, naturally, students need to learn and value team building, cooperation, listening, and communicating. Core competencies in writing, reading, and mathematics will be elevated in STEAM, as practical considerations of complex, real-world issues require such multidisciplinary thinking. Even students creating a checklist of all the kinds of thinking in a real-world problem, will give them full ownership of the problem to its complete solution.
Addressing urban agriculture challenges
One of the biggest problems facing many parts of the world is urban agriculture. As our climate changes with more and more unpredictability, a key source of our existence, which is food, becomes a heightened issue in terms of accessibility, sustainability, and affordability. The first thing, of course, is to bring awareness of this to students with integrated learning that shows the science and statistics of what is happening, and what will need to happen in the future to solve problems in urban agriculture.
Practical application: growing plants
Having students actually see and work with plant growth is one example of how a STEAM-based activity can be exemplified. Nature is complex and requires optimum conditions for the healthiest and most robust production. Having daily access to growing plants not only helps students see the macro picture of urban agriculture through a micro lens, but which is realistic and aligned to goals of STEAM education
The essence of STEAM education
The most critical shift of STEAM education is moving students to a more active role in their learning, harnessing all the natural creativity and curiosity they bring with them when they start school. A clear indication that our past system was always flawed is that student questioning–the physical raising of hands–invariably decreases as they get older. Quiet classrooms are the unattended reminders that passivity and compliance has been exchanged for curiosity and learning ownership. As such designing STEAM activities which require the collective imagination and perspectives of all students becomes the new journey that vibrant and colorful classrooms take on. Today and for the future.
Their future.
This article was written in collaboration with Sunil Singh, Author, Storyteller and Mathematics educator.