STEAM Education is an approach to learning that uses Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics as access points for guiding student inquiry, dialogue, and critical thinking. Integrated STEAM education in European schools is an approach to preparing a quality STEM workforce and literate citizens for highly technology-based society. Understanding science and mathematics knowledge and practices, as well as technological and engineering practices, has become a priority for national education programs across the world. Our course is focused on understanding the process which brought from STEM to STEAM which is more popular and trendy at the moment. It is named differently from STEM due to its emphasis on arts (fine arts, language arts, liberal arts, and physical arts) as an important component of integration. While the STEAM reform movement is in alignment with STEM reform in other countries, its added component, i.e., arts, was inspired by the concurrent social discourse on education for creativity and a well-rounded citizen in the twenty-first century.
For far too long in education, we’ve been working with the presumption of teaching to ensure our students get a “good job”. But what does that look like? We are preparing students for jobs that don’t even exist.
We are at a point where it is not only possible, but imperative that we facilitate learning environments that are fluid, dynamic, and relevant. None of us go outside and look at a tree and say, “that’s a tree, so that’s science” or, “the sky is blue, so that’s art.”
Integrating concepts, topics, standards and assessments is a powerful way to disrupt the typical course of events for our students and to help change the merry-go-round of “school.”
Author: Catherine Perri, JUMP Trainer
