{"id":117022,"date":"2021-11-08T02:50:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-08T10:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gettingsmart.com\/?p=117022"},"modified":"2021-11-05T14:31:15","modified_gmt":"2021-11-05T21:31:15","slug":"6-stem-resources-for-every-classroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gettingsmart.com\/2021\/11\/08\/6-stem-resources-for-every-classroom\/","title":{"rendered":"6 STEM Resources for Every Classroom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
For the past six years, I have taught an eighth-grade course in STEAM. As a longtime French and Spanish teacher, STEAM was new to me, and initially, I did not feel like I had enough preparation or knowledge to provide the right activities and learning experiences for my students. Prior to officially teaching STEAM, I thought that STEM or STEAM activities were not something that I could or even should add into my language classes. However, since teaching this course and having done a lot of research, I now realize that we all need to create opportunities related to STEM in our classrooms.
With an increasing need for skills in STEM-related fields and to meet the growing number of careers available now and in the future, our students need opportunities to explore these topics. It is important to spark student curiosity for STEM which might create an interest in a future career but more importantly, it helps all students to develop essential 21st-century and workplace skills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Knowing where to begin with STEM can bring uncertainty as there are so many choices in activities, tools, curriculum, and more, or perhaps, some of the options may require specific knowledge or skill set, or resources. Regardless of grade level or subject area, we have a lot of quick ways and tools that are easy to use to help us to bring STEM into our classroom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
STEM activities will help students develop the essential skills needed for life and workplace success including social-emotional learning (SEL) skills and the critical 21st-century skills we have been talking about in education for many years.
As we prepare our lessons each day, I recommend checking the information available through the World Economic Forum<\/a><\/span>, to keep up with the types of skills employers are looking for, so that I can plan better activities in my classroom to prepare students. Some of the top skills include collaboration, communication, creativity, problem-solving, and teamwork. There are many options for helping students to develop these skills through the methods and tools that we use in our classroom. With some of the options below, we can find ways to connect the content being taught with incorporating STEM activities in our classrooms.
We can also use some methods like genius hour or 20% time or project-based learning (PBL), which provide students the opportunity to engage in independent work and enable them to develop these essential \u201cworkplace\u201d and SEL skills. Trying some design challenges in small groups is great for team building and developing collaborative skills. Earlier in October, Global Maker Day<\/a><\/span>, led by Jaime Donally and an amazing team, provided a variety of maker activities from educators and students around the world. Take time to check out the resources shared from this yearly event! You can find different STEM challenges that can be done in any class or level that will foster the development of these essential skills without requiring a ton of time to get started.<\/p>\n\n\n