Issue No.: HB20181214E Date: Dec. 14, 2018 Author: Global TEAM Model Education Research Institute
⭐The Call for STEAM
STEAM is an integrated learning framework. Its philosophy emphasizes student inquiry, dialogue, critical thinking, and problem-solving learning (some interpret "problem-solving learning" as "process-oriented learning"). Learning experiences designed according to this framework are meaningful, thought-provoking, and can inspire learning motivation. They are also clear in context and integrated across disciplines. Because its teaching focus is on "problem-solving," the first step in teaching is naturally to pique students' interest. Students' curiosity is only meaningful if it comes from their lives or background knowledge. The result of every STEAM learning experience should enable students to establish a basic understanding of how life connects with various school subjects, ultimately cultivating the ability to independently solve problems and engage in lifelong learning.
In recent years, STEM has quickly taken root everywhere, with billions of dollars injected and schools at all levels following suit. On February 2, 2016, John Maeda, the former president of the Rhode Island School of Design, first publicly and strongly advocated for the indispensable role of the arts in STEM at the fifth Governor Victor Atiyeh Leadership for Education Awards ceremony, officially bringing the STEAM issue to the forefront and drawing the attention of education policymakers. Since then, STEAM has risen like an internet celebrity, becoming an overnight sensation. In addition to various countries formulating relevant policies, the United States even designated November 8 as STEAM Day to encourage children to cultivate a lifelong interest in exploration and the pursuit of diverse knowledge. But STEAM is not just a passing fad; numerous frontline teachers who endorse STEAM are tirelessly developing and refining relevant curricula.
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| The Call for STEAM |
⭐What Is STEAM?
STEAM is an integrated learning framework. Its philosophy emphasizes student inquiry, dialogue, critical thinking, and problem-solving learning (some interpret "problem-solving learning" as "process-oriented learning"). Learning experiences designed according to this framework are meaningful, thought-provoking, and can inspire learning motivation. They are also clear in context and integrated across disciplines. Because its teaching focus is on "
problem-solving," the first step in teaching is naturally to pique students' interest. Students' curiosity is only meaningful if it comes from their lives or background knowledge. The result of every STEAM learning experience should enable students to establish a basic understanding of how life connects with various school subjects, ultimately cultivating the ability to independently solve problems and engage in lifelong learning.
Key characteristics of a STEAM approach:
✅ Meaningful The entire teaching design must be closely related to students' lives or background knowledge.
✅ Problem-Oriented The goal is to stimulate students' interest and inquiry.
✅ Clearly Contextual The learning context is closely linked and consistent from beginning to end.
✅ Interdisciplinary The curriculum provides competency indicators for at least two or more subjects, including Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Arts.
It effectively teaches the concepts that should be understood in each subject while also integrating different subjects into the teaching.
✅ Humanity involved The arts serve as a hook to attract students' interest, as the tailor that weaves various subjects into a beautiful work of art, and as a natural medium to instill humanistic values in people.
✅ Intentional Based on goals, the curriculum design systematically connects competency indicators, assessments, and content, with careful thought given to the entire teaching design and its coherence.
✅ Lifelong Encourages students to take calculated risks, participate in experiential learning, persevere in problem-solving, actively collaborate, and, through creative learning (Education Closet), develop a lifelong curiosity and inquiry ability towards life.
⭐Four Aspects HiTeach Supports STEAM
In education, STEAM allows students to actively experience the process of creativity and innovation, ultimately enabling them to solve real-life problems and find answers. Because STEAM focuses on project-based learning, it also emphasizes a student-centered approach and teamwork (among students or between students and teachers). The following elaborates on how the HiTeach smart classroom and TEAM Model Based Smarter Learning (TBSL) Methodology of the TEAM Model smart education support system support the implementation of STEAM.
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| Teacher Tian Zailai's "Giant Ocean Liner" STEAM Class |
1. Student-Centered & Guided
With a well-designed lesson plan, a class rooted in real life can keep students engaged and eager to learn more. Under the TEAM Model smart education support system, the TBSL methodology, which uses the HiTeach smart classroom as an auxiliary teaching tool, emphasizes data-driven decision-making. This allows teachers to create meaningful, interesting, and relevant learning experiences. These powerful and engaging learning experiences can also be easily and routinely used and quickly replicated and disseminated across different regions with HiTeach. In addition to making the learning experience student-centered, the high level of interaction between students and teachers and the instant data feedback allow teachers to grasp individual student learning and adjust their guidance based on each student's specific situation, thereby implementing the student-centered philosophy in detail.
Taking Teacher Tian Zailai's
"Giant Ocean Liner(《遠洋巨人號》in Chinese)" STEAM Class as an example (
this link is a Sokrates video, please log in to watch), at the 10:50 mark of the class, Teacher Tian asks students to "Buzz-in" to decide who will present the results of their group discussion. This not only puts the decision-making power in the hands of the students but also stimulates their learning motivation. After a student's presentation, Teacher Tian immediately invites another volunteer to comment on the previous student's answer, encouraging students to offer different opinions and extend their thinking. At 14:36, each group conducts its own designed experiment, and at 22:18, students compare the results of each group's experiment. At 39:12, students are asked to choose the best work in their hearts based on the principles they collectively summarized, using an instant Q&A (Pop Quiz) method to vote. In a STEAM classroom, it is not the teacher who dominates the experiments and summarization, nor does the teacher determine what is good or bad. The initiative in learning is in the hands of the students, and everyone can have their own ideas. The TBSL methodology supported by HiTeach allows the student-centered approach to take root and be implemented efficiently, enabling teachers to adjust the class at any time based on students' wishes, interests, and abilities.
2. Observation & Interaction
As a STEAM teacher, one must have keen observation skills to adjust the classroom direction based on students' learning status at any time. From the initial topic setting to in-class discussions, observation is necessary to ask meaningful questions, continuously stimulate learning motivation, and maintain a clear context for the class. HiTeach integrates all of a teacher's technology needs, allowing them to easily interact with students and observe their learning status.
First, the HiTA smart assistant app allows teachers to move around the classroom without being restricted to the area around the Interactive Whiteboard (IWB). While controlling the class content, they can also observe every student's in-class situation. Student devices, such as an IRS (Interactive Response System) or tablets, not only make it easy for teachers and students to communicate but also, because every student must respond, allow the teacher to immediately see the class's understanding through real-time statistics. Based on the statistics, the teacher can make instant teaching decisions and can also retrieve data after class to understand individual students' learning situations. Through questioning and feedback, the quality and quantity of interaction can be improved, and interactive learning modes like teacher-student and student-student interaction can be used appropriately.
In the "Giant Ocean Liner" class, at the 5:00 mark, Teacher Tian uses an instant Q&A (Pop Quiz function) to survey students' understanding of "load-bearing" and immediately grasps their prior knowledge. The teacher then makes a data-driven decision based on the statistical chart, randomly selecting a student from the most popular option (paper bowl) to share their reasoning. Additionally, in the last six minutes of the hands-on activity, Teacher Tian circulates among the groups, listening to their discussions and providing guidance. He also uses HiTA to take pictures of each group's discussion content and pastes it back onto the whiteboard page at 36:22 to instantly share with the whole class. HiTeach allows the teacher to observe students more flexibly and grasp the classroom context while improving the quality and quantity of interaction, highlighting the key elements of a STEAM classroom.
3. Collaboration & Sharing
Problem-based learning, emphasized in the STEAM framework, means that students, or teachers and students, must collaborate to formulate a solution strategy. HiTeach supports team-based learning (TBL), focusing on group learning, and its design has always supported student-centered collaboration. In addition to the IRS, which can represent a student's individual thinking, students are also divided into groups to discuss problems or complete assigned tasks together. Everyone has their strengths and weaknesses, which present both advantages and challenges within a group. For areas where an individual is strong, they can lead the group; for weaker areas, they can assist from the side.
In a HiTeach TBL smart classroom, each group has at least one tablet for members to brainstorm. They can produce collaborative work on the tablet and send it directly to the teacher, or they can take a picture of their work with the tablet and send that to the teacher. There are many ways to submit group work, and teachers can decide for themselves how students should submit. In a HiTeach smart classroom, sharing and communication between teachers and students have more flexible forms to promote team-based learning and create a lively, interactive, proactive classroom. In the "Giant Ocean Liner" class, Teacher Tian designs three group discussion segments and requires that each group member fully play their role, completing the group task while performing their individual duties. At 7:12, students try to solve a problem. Each group discusses solutions to find the load-bearing capacity of paper cups, bowls, and plates, and briefly describes them on a worksheet, then send it to the teacher. The teacher then allows the entire class to observe the works and discuss. At 14:36, each group conducts its own experiment, and the student in charge of recording fully documents the process. They then discuss the group's experimental conclusion and send it to share with the whole class. The last teaching activity of the class is at 33:05, where groups collaborate to design their own boat. After taking a photo of the design concept and appearance, they send it to share with the whole class. In each discussion process, Teacher Tian reinforces the strengths of each group and gives verbal encouragement, allowing other groups to learn methods for group discussion. With the support of HiTeach, in-group interaction becomes more meaningful and sharing is more instant, embodying the STEAM spirit.
4. Focus & Mastery
Under the STEAM framework, each student must cooperate and play their part, and the teacher's role is to guide them to play to their strengths. The data-driven decision-making provided by HiTeach allows teachers to broaden their focus and instantly grasp individual students' learning status, interests, or strengths. This enables a more efficient and appropriate assignment of responsibilities for each student, allowing everyone to contribute. In a HiTeach e-schoolbag (student-tablet) smart classroom, interactions between each student and the teacher are more diverse, allowing a collective classroom teaching environment to not only achieve group collaborative learning but also the effect of one-on-one teaching. As exemplified in the discussion segments in points one, two, and three, the teacher is not restricted to the podium, and showing students' feedback is not limited to passing around paper. The teacher can instantly and effectively focus on and master student learning and discussions. In a HiTeach smart classroom, students have diverse ways to express their ideas, including IRS feedback, using tablets to display discussion or thinking outcomes, meaningful "Pick-out" random selection, "Buzz-in" to present ideas. Teachers have more diverse aspects and bases to work with, which naturally allows them to broaden their focus on students and enable every student to contribute.
⭐STEAM Framework x TBSL = Efficient Student-Centered Interactive Learning
The
TBSL methodology, developed based on HiTeach smart teaching, focuses on student-centeredness, interaction, teaching to aptitude, cooperative learning, and one-on-one attention, allowing various teaching scenarios to be brought to their full potential. The TBSL is divided into three levels: student-centered high interaction, synchronized differentiation, and collaborative one-on-one. Each level builds upon the previous one. In a synchronized differentiated classroom, student-centered high interaction will always be achieved; in a collaborative one-on-one classroom, both synchronized differentiation and student-centered high interaction will be achieved. In a traditional classroom, the spirit of STEAM requires more manpower and time to implement.
Over the past two years, the co-editor of this article, Ms. Yvonne, served as an elementary school teacher, primarily teaching Chinese language and mathematics. Having also been an English teacher, she often tried to combine these three subjects with various humanistic elements and students' experiences in her role as a homeroom teacher, all to achieve teaching goals. For example, in a Chinese language class, they would try to act out various sentences. By quoting vocabulary and sentence patterns from the text, she would lead students to discuss the plausibility of "crying hysterically while laughing uncontrollably(一邊嚎啕大哭一邊捧腹大笑)." Aside from finding the "sentence" amusing to perform, students learned during this process that "while... while...(一邊…一邊…)" must be paired with similar or non-conflicting terms, and since "crying hysterically" and "laughing uncontrollably" are opposite concepts, they are in conflict, and the possibility of them happening at the same time is zero. While developing various sentences, they would also discuss the best way to state them in English and what situations might lead to such actions. Throughout this process, to take care of every student, teacher had to constantly remember which students she had called on and pay attention to who had not responded. But experienced teachers know that even with the greatest care, there's a possibility of someone being overlooked. The observational data obtained through teaching experience in a classroom is time-consuming and labor-intensive. Even the most meticulous teacher would hope for more precise results. The design of HiTeach emphasizes data-driven decision-making and also allows for synchronized differentiation. Only then can such a student-centered and interactive approach truly be realized. The TBSL allows STEAM to be implemented naturally and quickly, breaking the boundaries of the traditional classroom and elevating teaching and learning to a deeper level.
⭐Sokrates AI Analysis System Supports Teacher Professional Growth
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| Teacher Tian Zailai's "Giant Ocean Liner" STEAM Class |
Transitioning to STEAM curriculum almost always means changing teaching methods and habits, which requires collaborative cooperation from teachers across different fields. Teachers who adopt the STEAM framework see themselves as "collaborative learners" and seek collaboration and cooperation with teachers of the same or different grade levels. This group of teachers forms a teaching team, where they share opinions and design the best lesson plans for students. At this time, having opportunities for professional learning that allow teachers to share experiences and observe models is even more beneficial for teachers. The TEAM Model's Sokrates AI analysis system provides teachers with a powerful tool to find good teaching models. AI Sokrates also makes sharing and feedback easier. Each Sokrates video and report represents a single lesson. Each Sokrates video includes three indicators, a classroom video, and teaching behavior data collected from the classroom. The teacher or others providing feedback/comment can also record markers at a specific moment in the classroom video, offering appropriate encouragement and suggestions. Not only can the teacher easily review the teaching process with video clips, but the teacher's professional development group can also share how to provide a better learning experience. Because the spirit of STEAM is about a real-life structure, teachers and the curricula they create should be able to encompass various possibilities in life. Sokrates can systematically help teachers adjust and improve at a faster pace.
⭐STEAM for School Administrators
If STEAM aims to connect students' learning with their daily life experiences, it's not just teachers who should put in the effort to design curricula with everyday life as the theme. Schools should also play a role in supporting teachers. It is essential for schools to provide teachers with sufficient and suitable infrastructure and facilities and to foster an atmosphere where everyone is willing to help and cooperate with each other. This way, teachers can teach in creative ways, cooperate with other teachers with a positive attitude, and further demonstrate the demeanor of a "professional," which is so important today. TEAM Model is a complete solution that prepares services for all aspects of teaching for schools and teachers. The digitalization of classroom teaching, assessment, diagnosis, and remediation makes it easy for both schools and teachers to integrate. HiTeach's design is based on educational needs and provides more services to realize teaching theories and frameworks. The ultimate goal is to "strengthen teaching and motivate learning." We hope teachers can successfully implement the STEAM framework and believe that with school support and respect, teachers' instruction will continuously improve, benefiting not only students but ultimately making the school shine. As explained before, HiTeach's ultimate goal is to "strengthen teaching and motivate learning," which aligns perfectly with the core goals of STEAM. Both aim to ignite students' passion and interest in learning and to turn them into lifelong learners. Everyone knows there is no shortcut to success, but what if there is? As educators on the front lines, teachers should carefully consider how to effectively implement the STEAM framework, and HiTeach is key to accelerating its realization.
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