One of the newest educational acronym is STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. The premise of STEM is that education needs to address these 4 topics with deeper understanding to gain employment and to compete in world markets.
In an Education Week Teacher online article dated June 17, 2014, Anne Jolly, a former middle school science teacher and current STEM curriculum adviser addresses Six Characteristics of a Great STEM Lesson.
Jolly believes all classrooms benefit from incorporating her six characteristics. I agree and didn’t realize that a chair or a pencil is considered technology because each is ‘a product made by humans to meet a want or need’. (It’s so much fun to understand new ideas!) Her characteristics include:
Focus on real-world issues/problems whether they are special, economic or environmental with the goal of seeking a solution.
Design a process to identify a process, do research, brainstorm and create a prototype with the understanding that evaluation and redesign are part of that process. Often I feel we accept these ideas but fail to take the possibly massive amounts of time needed to go beyond out initial designs and consider adaptations. Kind of like writing a story and not editing and re-visioning your plan. Here’s a place where less is more!
Immerse in inquiry so that students experience hands-on and open-ended exploration. This fits closely to the design characteristic mentioned above.
Productive teamwork is necessary. Together students ‘build a better mousetrap’. Knowing how to work with others become a key skill.
Apply math and science skills. I totally agree and often use the science hierarchy of learning with many different types of lessons. It’s a great way to focus thinking.
Open to multiple possible answers and failure reframes as part of learning. Jolly is very clear that through teamwork, students reach better/stronger/more concise results. Much of the time we stop student projects too quickly. We have so many tasks to complete that we don’t allow time for failure or rethinking our work. That takes time we seldom provide but, that’s when true learning begins.
I wish I could sit in one of Anne Jolly’s classes. I could learn so much from her. She has a blog (STEM by Design) on MiddleWeb that’s worth a look. You may also find her on Twitter:@ajollygal.