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Moving from STEM to STEAM

Where Art Thou?:
Moving from STEM to STEAM

Ed Table Talk will be broadcasting LIVE Tuesday, December 16th, 2014

STEM is all the rage and rightly so. The skills our children need to learn regardless of their profession incorporate the skills that are taught in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics classes. With the emphasis on these studies one has to wonder what has become of a well-rounded liberal arts education. Schools in many cases have squeezed out fine and performing arts in order to make time for all STEM requirements. In the last five years however, many have come to understand, that arts incorporate complimentary processes to those addressed in STEM curricula. Things have started to heat up in moving from STEM to add the arts and move to STEAM. 

In this show, we will explore how the arts are integrated into a STEM centered curriculum and provide a vision of how arts can be better integrated to provide learning opportunities for all students. 

Join Host Michael Jay and ETT Guests ponder the following:

  1. What are some examples of the process of moving from STEM to STEAM?
  2. What benefits and trade offs are made in the process of incorporating arts into a STEM curriculum?
  3. How prepared are educators to engage learners in learning activities that incorporate the arts?
  4. What can publishers and curriculum developers do to incorporate more STEM into their arts curricula and/or more arts into their STEM curricula?

Guests at the table:

1. Michelle Cheng – Professional Development Manager at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

2. Bob Barboza – Founder & CEO of Super School K12 International University

3. Daniel Barstow – Senior Science Educator at TERC


Science Education: The Next Generation

April 2014 — Science Education: The Next Generation

What does it take to implement a science standard at a national level? National scale standards in the US level have been controversial and the science standards are no different. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) have taken an inventive approach to describe and represent the inherently complex process of how we engage learners in making sense of the world around them.

Science benefits from having a degree of universality like mathematics making the content somewhat less controversial than language arts or the social sciences. However, helping educators understand what it looks like to integrate those standards into their teaching, engage their students in learning and develop understanding is no small task. The NGSS delves into the process and content of science, while incorporating other standards. How is this reflected in pre-service and in-service programs that will support educators and school administrator’s practices to embrace the intent of these standards?

What are the expectations of publishers implementing the standard? How can educators use the standard to support their teaching methods, and how should parents expect that science teaching would look different? Join Michael Jay and guests as they discuss Science Education and how it will change science education for decades to come.

Guests at The Table:

  1. Peter McLaren, Science and Technology Specialist, R.I. Department of Education
  2. Pat Shane, Ph.D., Executive Director, North Carolina Science Leadership Association (NCSLA)
  3. Ted Willard, Program Director, National Science Teaching Association (NSTA)

Resources

Handouts of NSTA products, services, and additional resources.
Link: http://ngss.nsta.org/nsta-products-and-services/#handouts

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