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STEAM; When A Makes the Difference!

By: Inas Essa

Intending to raise innovators, well-equipped with knowledge, and have a well-rounded educational background that would help them with the nature of future jobs, educators have been developing different methods to spark interest and passion in learners to learn more about different subjects, to be able to choose the pathway they want to pursue. That is because, even if they would like to pursue a career in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields, they will also need a baseline of different skills to adapt to their academic or professional careers.

However, at some point in their study, learners have to choose one path to pursue, either scientific or literary; that is why some tweaks are required to merge the benefits of the two pathways under a more general arch. That has resulted in a new method: STEAM education!

What is STEAM?

Many studies have shown the overlap of science and literature at several points, and how notable scientists have had a deep interest in the Arts. In educational, however, this has not been that evident until recently, when the term STEAM appeared, with an A that could make a difference. While STEM education includes Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, STEAM education could generate better outcomes with the A that refers to the Arts.

The goal of this new method is to foster the true innovation generated from combining the mind of a scientist with that of an artist. The STEAM framework is meant to bring the five disciplines together, in an inclusive way that encourages all students to participate and contribute in a more beneficial way to their future, which would require a set of more developed and creative skills.

It is important to note that STEAM education is cross-curricular; that is, it covers several topics at the same time. STEAM education intends also to make the study of math and science more visual and creative, and to see things more openly. While the A refers to the Arts, it does not mean implementing the Arts only in STEM education, but using STEAM activities to cover other disciplines, including history, reading, and music along with traditional math and science activities. For example, instead of using a traditional prompt like “Name the different parts of a car!”, the one used in STEAM education could be “How to create a prototype for a method of transportation that uses less fuel and still gets people to work on time”.

Why is STEAM Education Important?

Besides allowing learners to be more creative, STEAM education empowers teachers to employ project-based learning that merges all five disciplines. This would generate an inclusive learning environment in which all students would have the chance to contribute.

Applying this new method would also generate a dynamic synergy between the visual arts and the natural sciences. Learners who want to major in sciences would use visual-art skills to provide detailed illustrations, and another whose passion is Arts would apply analytic and logical thinking to compose and scale their work of art.

That would also help learners afterward if they want to pursue a career in science communication; traditional methods of writing and giving speeches have become not that engaging. Including illustration, animation, videography, cartooning, and the model building would help in that. Likewise, while other pathways, such as engineering, depend heavily on creating models, using visual arts in this would make it much better.

What Does the STEAM Model Look Like?

It is important to understand what STEAM means in both its intention and implementation. Its core is:

Creating an intentional connection between standards, assessments, and lesson design/implementation.

Involving two or more standards from Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, and the Arts to be taught and assessed through each other.

Emphasizing process-based learning.

STEAM Education in Action

There are 6 steps to creating a STEAM-centered environment. In each step, educators would work through both the content and the arts standards to address a central problem or an essential question. This process could be used during the planning of a lesson, as well as facilitating the actual learning process in the session. Here are the main steps:

1. Focus

The answer a learner gets from answering a question or solving a problem on their own or with some help would stick to their minds longer. As an educator, you would need to pick up a question or introduce a problem to be solved. This should be closely related to the STEAM content you would deliver to them.

2. Detail

After introducing the problem, you need to look for the elements that are contributing to the problem or question. This would be easier for you when you first observe the correlation to other areas or why the problem exists. Then, you would begin to dig deeper into the key background information, skills, or processes that students already have to address the question.

3. Discovery

Active research and intentional teaching are the core of discovery. So, after digging deeper into the problem, learners would research current and potential solutions. This would help them figure out what works and what does not. An educator's job in this step is to analyze the gaps in your learners' skills or process and act on that by teaching them the required skills.

4. Application

This step is where learners take the lead to create their own solutions that would solve the current problems that have no efficient solutions. In this step, they can use the skills and knowledge already acquired in the previous step and put them into action.

5. Presentation

After the hard work the leaners have done to reach a satisfying solution for a certain problem, the time to present and share it with others comes. This step allows learners to speak their perspectives out loud regarding the problem and the solution they have come up with. They would get feedback for their hard work so that they learn how to give and receive input from others.

6. Link

Since reflection is the right time to truly learn from an experience or a process, this step would help learners reflect on the whole process and the feedback they received based on their skills and work. That would allow them to revise their work as needed and produce a future better solution.

STEAM Education Trigger Inquiry

STEAM education is not about a set of methods or knowledge; its foundations lie in critical thinking and process-based learning that would help learners develop their own way of thinking about problems to get the best solutions ever and spot the skills they need to work on. To get better results, questions and problems introduced to children should be non-Googleable ones to trigger their abilities of inquiry and research.

In a nutshell, STEAM education is meant to prepare students for life, with critical thinking and solving problems skills. That would help them overcome obstacles and take advantage of the different opportunities that would match their true interest.