Providing a quality, comprehensive STEM program for students, a regularly scheduled, ongoing
series of instructional activities that involve Math, Science, Engineering, and
Technology, can be a challenge for a school. Still, this is increasingly perceived as an important need, a mandate in many places, and for good reason. How
unfortunate, then, when programming decisions defined by staffing, budget,
and resource scarcities result in STEM programs that are far less than they
might be.
STEM, after all, is best conceived as an integrated program, not simply lumping together standalone elements of Math, Science, and Technology (Computing), subjects that have a long history of being provided as isolated classes in our schools, alongside isolated subject classes of Social Studies, and ELA. STEM experiences of high quality though, illustrate and model for students how the individual disciplines from whose names the letters of the STEM acronym are derived, work together as they are applied in solutions to real world problems. One important element and example of this is Engineering, from whose name the fourth STEM letter “E” is derived. In real life the designing of bridges, machines, buildings and a myriad things that represent so much of man’s built and designed environment involves the coming together of Math, Science, and Technology, all supporting one another.
As clear as that understanding may be, schools still continue providing traditional isolated Math and Science classes which must satisfy
their own individual mandates for accreditation and accountability. And in many places the
school’s providing a “Computer” or “Technology” Class reflects similar needs,
as well. What results often then are STEM classes; classes that often occupy
the same niche as the Computer class, but which are updated to provide
activities that reflect the STEM sensibility. Such classes expose students to
bodies of skills like coding, robotics, and ‘smart (programmable) electronics” and similar program elements. Much of this is supported by
purchased or subscription-based resources that include programming apps and
resources, as well as electronic component and robotics building kits.
While establishing and implementing this variety of relevant and rich STEM program is, in and of itself, no mean feat, several years back, ever restless, forward thinking educators went even further and launched the STEAM framework. STEAM, which adds an “A” for the Arts, is seen by many as including a connection to Literature, which has a very long history of its expressive and descriptive functions being considered an art form. Reflecting a bit further, it is easy to see that Social Studies is fertile for a great many connections with Literature, The Arts, and STEM when considering its own needs to relate events and ideas and illustrate and explain them and propose interpretations of them.
While establishing and implementing this variety of relevant and rich STEM program is, in and of itself, no mean feat, several years back, ever restless, forward thinking educators went even further and launched the STEAM framework. STEAM, which adds an “A” for the Arts, is seen by many as including a connection to Literature, which has a very long history of its expressive and descriptive functions being considered an art form. Reflecting a bit further, it is easy to see that Social Studies is fertile for a great many connections with Literature, The Arts, and STEM when considering its own needs to relate events and ideas and illustrate and explain them and propose interpretations of them.
With all of the above as background, it is easy to see that
designing, preparing, and implementing a full STEM/STEAM program requires a
great deal from a school. Reflecting on a case story of a school in which,
despite challenges that would stand in the way of most,
a truly excellent STEAM program emerged, is enlightening and so inspiring as to
be a call to action on the part of many colleague schools. Here, then, is the
story of the 6th Grade STEAM program of Ditmas Middle School in
Brooklyn, New York.
The school’s SEP Team is
composed of Mr. Carideo, the school’s 6th Grade Technology
teacher (also licensed in Social Studies) and Mr. Eliot Sefaradi, a 6th
Grade Mathematics teacher. Both Mr. Carideo and Sefaradi are officially
designated as making up the school’s SEP team (a district-level designation), and are
scheduled to work collaboratively together on 6th grade STEM
instruction. However, because of the professional chemistry between the two, as
well as the broad scope of their professional backgrounds, they surpass their
mandate to teach STEM, something they accomplished to a very high level, but
also lead their students into the wonderful dimension of STEAM. In
their scheduled STEM co-teaching classes, they engage their students in interdisciplinary projects that infuse
Literacy. Social Studies, ESL and other topics through application of STEM
skills. This is a great learning bonus for the students and one that reverberates significantly through the school's general instructional culture.
Both teachers have a child's fascination with ongoing curricula
innovations and are eager "to play with" standard STEM content and resources. They
like the new challenge of tackling the mandated STEM initiative yet making the
subject their own, reflecting their interests and passions and above all, those
of their students, whom they often engage in conversation in their ongoing
listening for what interests them. Both teachers experiment with new tools
and technologies and teach them to themselves as part of their process of
expanding their repertoire before passing their passion for and joy in STEAM on
to their students.
A Project Oriented Approach
The glue that holds the various elements of their
STEM program together are the projects the two come up with; an ongoing series of
challenges that require much thinking, learning and then application of skills
and bodies of knowledge, as well as frequent reflection on the way things turn
out and how they might be improved. These projects are longterm ongoing
efforts, with students working on them for more than a dozen sessions each.
Animated Music Videos is one of their popular
projects in which students select a popular song and create an animation to
accompany music. At the core of this
highly engaging project is the skill of coding, for which these teachers make
good use of the SCRATCH coding platform. SCRATCH is a project of the MIT Media
Lab and is available as a free resource. This project establishes important and
clear connections between this body of tech and media skills and core
curriculum area subjects which, in this school, are generally taught traditionally
in a print-centric environment.
Further,
the project offers a good opportunity for metacognitive reflection and through
accountable talk and writing, in which students are required to explain why
they selected a particular song and how its lyric or music connected to their
individual interests or resonated with their cultural background. They were
challenged to make the video “fit” a specific aspect of a lyric and explain how
they developed the video to fit that lyric.
The
project also offers a good deal of career learning. Students learn coding and
other sought after technology skills and their application to a host of media
communications uses. The student created videos are very much the sort of thing
that business increasingly relies on as competing brand and market niche
companies rely on telling their story to potential customers.
Connections to essential learning directed at Common Core Standards include English Language Arts Standards » Anchor Standards » College and Career Readiness Anchor Standards for Speaking and Listening » 5
“Make strategic use of digital media and visual displays of data to express
information and enhance understanding of presentations.”
http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/CCRA/SL/5/
Related
to this are powerful connections to softer curriculum that represent crucial
learning for success in higher education and careers. The project is also rich
in learning opportunities to expand capacity in goal setting and task focus;
strategic problem solving; and developing grit and perseverance.
Story
Creation
Another
of their projects that provides great alignment to ELA and Literacy learning is
their Short Story Creation, coding-based animation project. In this project
students were challenged to create very short stories, making certain that their stories have a definite beginning, middle and end. In
other words, beyond learning and applying coding skills, they were engaged in
classic author’s craft learning about narrative format and plot development. They
were charged to focus, as well, on descriptions of settings and characters.
Thus,
the students were engaged in a project based, digital publication effort, and
one that included addressing a potentially large audience as the intention was
to post the finished work online so that the entire community of learners could
review one another’s work. Again, this represents invaluable career training as
the shape of commercial communications continues to develop in the direction of
highly valuing this sort of storytelling.
"Student work was posted online in a project gallery and the teachers created a loop composed of all of their individual works for the students which was made accessible online to all. Students were encouraged to comment on one another’s work, learned how to give appropriate peer feedback, and were guided to ask probing, relevant questions in response to peer items they read. Some students even had followers from other countries comment online; some of these even asked for a story “similar: to one they liked to be created for them."
Standards directly
and strongly addressed include (in addition to ELA-Literacy/CCRA/SL/5 already
mentioned above for the music video project, which apply here, as well):
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.11-12.4
Present information, findings, and supporting evidence, conveying a clear and distinct perspective, such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning, alternative or opposing perspectives are addressed, and the organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience, and a range of formal and informal tasks.
Present information, findings, and supporting evidence, conveying a clear and distinct perspective, such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning, alternative or opposing perspectives are addressed, and the organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose, audience, and a range of formal and informal tasks.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.11-12.5
Make strategic use of digital media (e.g., textual, graphical, audio, visual, and interactive elements) in presentations to enhance understanding of findings, reasoning, and evidence and to add interest.
Make strategic use of digital media (e.g., textual, graphical, audio, visual, and interactive elements) in presentations to enhance understanding of findings, reasoning, and evidence and to add interest.
Impacting
the Culture of Learning and Teaching
The
impact on these students from such projects being made part of their ongoing regular
instructional program has been significant. Not surprisingly, the student’s
level of engagement, enthusiasm, and esprit du corps has been noticeably high.
Further, these projects have garnered the attention of other teachers in the
school, notably core curriculum subject area teachers. Thus, not only has the
STEM program improved the scholarly life of the students directly assigned to
the classes of these 2 teachers, but there has been a highly significant ripple
effect of their efforts throughout the school, most notably in the desire of
other teachers to adopt and infuse their practices into their own curriculum
and teaching.
Accordingly, the
SEP teachers offered a workshop on their approaches to colleague teachers in
the school. Among those who attended is Ms. Carcione, a Science teacher and Mr.
Downes, a Social Studies teacher were inspired by the work of the SEP teachers
and voluntarily attended a workshop on SCRATCH coding and were further inspired
to introduce the body of skills in their own teaching.
They
decided they could use it in their ongoing project based learning as an
additional option for projects they already do as part of their curricula. The students had the option of selecting from
a body of technology applications in order to communicate a Science or Social Studies
message. In Science, for instance, students read current news stories that concern
real world energy issues and communicate their learning and opinions by first
selecting either robotics, animated video games, or a slide presentation as a
vehicle to carry their voice to peers and others. In Social Studies students
play the role of advertising media producers to create brochures and animated
informational messages intended to convince Europeans to come to the American
Colonies to live.
It
is noteworthy that the eagerness of Downes and Carcione, both veteran teachers,
to include these STEAM experiences for students in their ongoing, field tested
menu of projects demonstrates that the integrating STEM skills into classrooms,
other than those run by specialists officially designated as STEM Education team
members, has strong appeal as a way to update and enrich mandated content area
instruction that is too often approached reflexively, traditionally.
Letting
STEAM activities drive instruction across the curriculum can result in a rich,
authentic, cross disciplinary program, an educational opportunity to satisfy the
needs of today’s students preparing themselves for careers and future higher education
that increasingly is steeped deeply in STEAM skills and contexts.
Dr. Rose Reissman is the founder of the Writing Institute, now replicated in 200 schools including the Manchester Charter Middle School in Pittsburgh. She is a featured author in New York State Union Teachers Educators Voice 2016 and was filmed discussing ESL student leadership literary strategies developed at Ditmas IS 62, a Brooklyn public intermediate school. roshchaya@gmail.com
Mark Gura - a native of New York
City, Mark Gura taught in public schools in East Harlem for two decades.
Afterwards, he spent 5 years as a staff and curriculum developer for the
central office of the New York City Department of Education. Eventually,
he was tapped to establish the Department’s Office of Instructional
Technology, where he held the position of Director for 7 years,
supervising professional development in the use of technology, citywide. After retiring,
Mark joined Fordham University’s Regional Educational Technology Center,
organizing citywide education conferences and events. He has taught
Instructional Technology courses for both Fordham and Touro College. Mark has
written books and created materials for ISTE (International Society for
Technology in Education), Information Age Books, Scarecrow Books, Corwin, and
Teacher Created Materials. He has been an education writer for the New York
Daily News and contributed numerous articles to Converge, T.H.E. Journal, and EdTech
magazines. He was the co-producer of the popular podcasts The Teachers Podcast,
Talking Financial Literacy Podcast, and host/producer of Literacy Special
Interest Podcast. Mark has spoken on the subject of Instructional Technology
throughout the U.S. Visit: http://www.markgura.blogspot.com/ Write
to: markgura@verizon.net
Dr. Rose Reissman is the founder of the Writing Institute, now replicated in 200 schools including the Manchester Charter Middle School in Pittsburgh. She is a featured author in New York State Union Teachers Educators Voice 2016 and was filmed discussing ESL student leadership literary strategies developed at Ditmas IS 62, a Brooklyn public intermediate school. roshchaya@gmail.com
