STEAM - Learning That is Representative of the Whole World

Summary

The speaker shares her journey in developing the STEAM curriculum, integrating science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics to create a holistic educational framework. Drawing from her background in engineering and arts, she emphasizes the importance of teaching how to learn and adapt, with STEAM being universally applicable across ages. Her experiences, including teaching in a rural school and winning a national engineering competition, highlight the curriculum's effectiveness and the transformative power of interdisciplinary learning.

Takeaways

• 🌟 The speaker is excited to discuss their development with the STEAM curriculum, emphasizing its significance in their educational journey.
• 🎓 STEAM is a teaching framework that integrates Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics, aiming to mimic natural learning processes.
• 🏫 The speaker's educational philosophy is deeply influenced by historical figures in education like Comenius, Montessori, Jane Adams, and John Dewey.
• 👨‍💻 The speaker's background in technology education and engineering design has significantly shaped their approach to STEAM, viewing education through an engineering lens.
• 🏡 A formative childhood experience of building a house with her grandfather at age 12 instilled a strong sense of empowerment and creativity in the speaker.
• 👵 The speaker's upbringing by immigrant grandparents, especially her grandfather's engineering mindset and her grandmother's creative spirit, profoundly influenced her worldview and educational philosophy.
• 🧠 The speaker's personal experiences with family members with Asperger's syndrome have highlighted the diversity of learning styles and the importance of inclusive education.
• 🎨 The integration of Arts into STEAM is crucial for the speaker, who believes that the Arts enhance communication, aesthetics, and the humanistic aspect of STEM fields.
• 🌐 The speaker's STEAM model is universal and adaptable, effective for learners of all ages, including children and adults like her grandmother with Alzheimer's.
• 🏆 The speaker's after-school engineering club's success in a national competition demonstrates the practical application and engagement of STEAM principles.
• 📈 STEAM education promotes functional literacy and continuous learning, preparing students to be informed and adaptive in an ever-changing world.

Q & A

What is the main theme of the speaker's presentation?

The main theme of the presentation is the speaker's development of the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics) framework, emphasizing its holistic, cross-disciplinary approach to education and how it aligns with natural learning processes.

How does the speaker relate their personal background to their educational philosophy?

The speaker discusses being raised by immigrant grandparents, including a grandfather who was an engineer and a grandmother who was creative and humanistic. These influences shaped their understanding of combining engineering, creativity, and human-centered approaches in education.

What role does the engineering design process play in the speaker's approach to education?

The speaker explains that they incorporate the engineering design process—evaluating, planning, redesigning—into their daily teaching, which helps them continuously improve the STEAM Matrix and adapt it to real-world changes.

Why does the speaker emphasize the importance of integrating the arts into STEM?

The speaker believes that adding the arts to STEM creates a more holistic educational experience, bridging the gap between technical knowledge and creative, human-centered design. This integration helps students better understand and communicate their work.

What experience does the speaker share about their time in Puerto Rico?

At 12 years old, the speaker helped their grandfather design and build a house in Puerto Rico, which they found empowering. This experience influenced their confidence and appreciation for hands-on, practical learning.

How did the speaker’s family dynamics influence their views on learning and teaching?

Growing up with a mother and brother who had Asperger's, the speaker learned the importance of different learning styles and teaching approaches. This shaped their belief that everyone can learn, despite challenges, and education should accommodate diverse needs.

What did the speaker accomplish in their after-school engineering program?

The speaker's after-school engineering club tackled a national competition, designing a prom outfit based on the periodic table of elements. They won first place at Nationals, and the experience taught the students valuable lessons in teamwork, chemistry, and design.

How does the speaker view assessments and testing in their classroom?

The speaker avoids traditional bubble sheet tests, instead favoring portfolios that track students' ideas and learning processes. This approach improves student engagement and helps them perform better in other subjects.

What impact does the speaker claim STEAM has on different age groups?

The speaker claims that STEAM is universal across all age groups, citing examples of using it with both young children and their elderly grandmother with Alzheimer's. The adaptability of STEAM makes it effective for learners of all ages.

What is the ultimate goal of the speaker's approach to STEAM education?

The speaker aims to create an educational environment where students can continuously learn, investigate topics deeply, and fully participate, regardless of their skill levels or challenges. They believe in fostering functional literacy and lifelong learning.

Outlines

00:00

🌟 Introduction to STEAM Education Philosophy

The speaker introduces their journey with STEAM education, emphasizing its significance beyond a curriculum to a teaching framework. They discuss their personal educational philosophy, influenced by historical educators and the engineering design process. The speaker's background, including their upbringing by immigrant grandparents with contrasting personalities and professions, shapes their approach to STEAM. Their grandfather's work in engineering and their grandmother's creative spirit contribute to their belief in a holistic educational method that adapts to learners' strengths and weaknesses.

05:01

🎨 The Universality of STEAM Across Age Groups

The speaker explores the universal applicability of STEAM, illustrating its effectiveness from early childhood to older adults, such as their grandmother with Alzheimer's. They recount their varied experiences, including studying clothing and textile design, working in Ecuador, and later shifting to education. The speaker's transition to technology education at Virginia Tech and the influence of STEM integration in their department laid the groundwork for their STEAM approach. They argue for the inclusion of the Arts in STEM, highlighting the importance of communication and the aesthetic in engineering, leading to the development of the STEAM model.

10:01

🏫 Implementing STEAM in the Classroom

The speaker delves into their classroom practices, emphasizing the importance of active learning and engagement over traditional testing methods. They describe innovative activities like 'ultimate recycling' and games for blind students, showcasing the adaptability of STEAM. The speaker's philosophy is to create an inclusive learning environment where all students, regardless of their abilities, can participate and excel. They discuss the structure of STEAM, viewing science as the natural world, technology as human-made creations, engineering as the active creation of technology, and the Arts as a broad spectrum of human expression, all underpinned by the language of mathematics.

15:02

🏆 STEAM in Action: National Engineering Competition

The speaker shares a specific instance of implementing STEAM through an after-school engineering club that participated in a national competition. They recount the team's project based on the periodic table of elements, which not only won first place but also fostered collaboration among diverse students. This experience underscored the practical application of STEAM principles, leading to a deeper understanding of various subjects beyond the classroom. The speaker concludes with a reflection on the challenges and rewards of STEAM education, highlighting its potential for growth and cultural adaptation, as evidenced by its recent adoption in South Korea.

Keywords

💡Steam

Steam stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics. It is an educational framework that integrates these disciplines to enhance learning experiences. In the video, the speaker discusses their development of the Steam framework to better align with natural learning processes and to be adaptable to the public education sector.

💡Engineering Mindset

The engineering mindset refers to a problem-solving approach that is systematic, iterative, and focuses on designing solutions. The speaker's grandfather was an electrical engineer, and this mindset influenced the speaker's approach to education, aiming to 'engineer' it for better design and outcomes.

💡Design Circle

The design circle is a process used in engineering and education that involves planning, executing, and evaluating designs. The speaker mentions using the design circle in technology education and engineering, which influenced their development of the Steam framework.

💡Holistic Education

Holistic education is an educational approach that considers the whole person, including their intellectual, emotional, physical, and social development. The speaker discusses the challenge of achieving true holistic education but aims to create a structure that allows for as much holistic learning as possible within the Steam framework.

💡Functional Literacy

Functional literacy refers to the ability to apply knowledge and skills effectively in real-life situations. The speaker emphasizes the importance of teaching students how to learn and adapt, which is a key aspect of functional literacy in the context of the Steam framework.

💡Assessment

Assessment in education is the process of evaluating学生的学习成果. The speaker criticizes traditional testing methods, such as bubble sheet tests, and instead advocates for portfolio assessments that track students' brainstorming and learning processes, which they found to be more effective.

💡Cultural Representation

Cultural representation in education means incorporating the diverse cultures and experiences of students into the curriculum. The speaker mentions that Steam is representative of the surrounding culture and was adopted by Korea as a national teaching method, indicating its adaptability to different cultural contexts.

💡Inclusivity

Inclusivity in education is about ensuring that all students, regardless of their abilities or backgrounds, are included and supported. The speaker's personal experiences and the development of the Steam framework emphasize inclusivity, as it is designed to be universal for all ages and abilities.

💡Portfolio Assessment

Portfolio assessment is an educational assessment method where students' work is collected and evaluated over time. The speaker uses portfolio assessments in their classroom instead of traditional tests, which they believe better capture students' learning and growth.

💡Engineering Competition

An engineering competition is a challenge where students apply their engineering skills to solve problems or create projects. The speaker mentions starting an after-school engineering club that participated in a national competition, which helped students learn and apply various subjects in a practical context.

💡Periodic Table of Elements

The periodic table of elements is a tabular arrangement of chemical elements. In the script, the speaker's students used the periodic table as a theme for an engineering competition, creating outfits that represented elements and learning about chemistry and physics in the process.

Highlights

STEAM is not a new curriculum but a teaching framework, developed to align with how people learn naturally while still fitting into the public education system.

The speaker's background includes a blend of engineering and creative influences, with a strict engineer grandfather and a creative, humanistic grandmother.

At age 12, the speaker built a house with her grandfather in Puerto Rico, which was an empowering experience.

The speaker's grandfather, an electrical engineer, played a key role in designing the electrical system for the first moon landing module.

Raised by a mother and brother with Asperger's, the speaker developed a deep understanding of different learning needs and ways of teaching others.

STEAM works for all age groups, from children in sandboxes to an elderly grandmother with Alzheimer's.

The speaker initially pursued clothing and textile design but later shifted into teaching, finding technology education as a field where all subjects intersect and are hands-on.

Technology education became integrated STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) education, which the speaker helped pioneer.

The importance of arts in STEM education is emphasized, leading to the development of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics).

The speaker highlights that teaching people how to learn is essential, as it helps individuals grow and adapt, avoiding stagnation.

STEAM encourages functional literacy, helping students become informed users who evaluate their own needs, wants, and opportunities.

Assessment in the speaker's classroom involves portfolios instead of standardized tests, focusing on tracking students' ideas and progress.

The speaker led an after-school engineering club that won first place in a national engineering competition with a design based on the periodic table.

STEAM's adaptability makes it applicable across different age groups and cultural settings, and it is being adopted as a national teaching method in Korea.

STEAM can be implemented inexpensively, which appeals to school administrators, and the speaker has created transportation and goal-oriented courses to enhance its teaching framework.

Transcripts

foreign

very often I get to go and talk about

steam this is the first time I've had

the opportunity to talk about my

development with steam so it's pretty

exciting to talk from that angle

steam is not a new curriculum it is a

framework for teaching because I am very

left and right brained things have to

make sense to me and when I came into

education things did not make a lot of

sense to me and so I wanted to find a

framework for teaching as I went into

education that was more representative

of how people learn naturally but still

could be combined with the public

education sector and those two things

don't often go well together

so education has come a long way and as

I've looked at the history of education

I've found people from the 1400s like

comenius or Montessori Jane Adams and

John Dewey from you know the 20s and 30s

and of course we all know they had some

fabulous ideas and because I taught in

technology education and Engineering we

did a lot with the design Circle and the

more I meshed my research in education

with the engineering design Circle the

more I realized that I was working on

education from an engineering standpoint

how can I Engineer education to be

better designed so I went through and I

evaluated and I planned and I

reevaluated and I redesigned and I do

this every day that I wake up I

reevaluate the steam Matrix and how well

it's working based on what's happened in

the world in the last 24 hours so in

order to understand

my perspective and how I came here I

think it's important to understand a

little bit about my background there's a

certain bond that people have if they

were raised by immigrants especially

immigrants that went through the Great

Depression they have their own viewpoint

on the United States on the world and I

was mostly raised by my grandparents my

grandfather was an electrical engineer

for Grumman electronics and he worked on

the engineer the electrical system that

went into the first modular landing on

the moon

so

he didn't want his kids to be brought up

in Long Island in New York City they had

an apartment there but he decided he was

going to buy a 200 acre farm upstate and

keep my Puerto Rican grandmother and her

children and their children there and

they were the first Hispanic family in

this really rural Upstate New York town

and that was very hard on her and the

children

but she grew up where she gave up the

Puerto Rican debutante lifestyle she

moved to New York City to tell her

family I don't need this lifestyle I can

do it without you she was always the

Tomboy and in trouble and very Lively so

I got his very strict engineering

mindset and I got her very loose

creative humanistic mindset and at 12

they brought me to Puerto Rico for an

extended period of time and my

grandfather and I built that house in

that lower picture we hired one person

to help us with concrete and he and I

together designed and built a house

that's pretty empowering for a 12 year

old to have built a house

and at that point I said wow you know

Grandpa we're doing some really cool

things and he said something to me that

I will absolutely never forget and it

made me very much who I am today he said

you're really smart

I was like cool Grandpa thinks I'm smart

said you're going to make a great

engineer's wife someday

so there are days that I wish that I

could wake him up and say guess who

teaches engineering

the reason I was raised mostly by my

grandparents is my mother has Asperger's

almost autism and my little brother has

Asperger's as well if you've had

students with Asperger's you know they

can be quite challenging having a parent

with Asperger's almost autism is very

challenging

so I grew up with this mindset that

there are so many different ways to

learn from people no matter what their

skills or deficits and there's so many

ways to teach other people and that's so

ingrained into my core so my younger

brother up there is an excellent

representative of Miss cantor's

statement the top 100 percent of our

students and I am more proud of him for

getting through high school and going on

to Community College than I am of

graduating Virginia Tech with high

honors he works harder in many ways than

most of our students ever have to work

for his achievements

now another thing that I've learned is

my little crazy Puerto Rican Grandma

still lives with us she's 89 years old

she has Alzheimer's and I teach her some

of the same things every day all day

long and we go over some of the same

things but steam works just as well for

her as it does for my children when they

were in the sandbox

and so one of the really cool things

about what I've been able to develop is

that

it's really Universal for age

there is no point where it works or it

doesn't work so that was very exciting

to me

I also had a big influence from the Arts

my mother married an artist at one point

and he did that portrait of me as a

child and so I had this great influx of

intense engineering intense art and this

kind of wild creative Homemaker of my

grandmother

so I decided that I wanted to be a

lawyer or an architect and upon going

into college it wasn't too long before

I got pregnant

and I just said you know I don't want to

spend all of my time in school when I

have young children I'm going to go and

do something easier I'm going to take

clothing and textiles design as a

bachelor's degree but I was never one of

those in the Box people so they said

okay design an outfit with one uh seam

and I designed an outfit all made out of

zippers

then I went and I became the vice

president of a company in Ecuador and I

got to teach 140 people all the time how

to make clothes and that was fascinating

then I decided I was away from my kids

70 80 hours a week

I wasn't being a parent I wanted to be I

gave up going to Ecuador and flying

around the country for shows and I went

back to school to get an education

degree well I had to pay for my children

so I decided I was going to start

designing houses no architecture degree

I was just going to do it and I did it

so I designed a bunch of houses and

redesigned a bunch of historical houses

in town and that was really neat

I went to Virginia Tech and I took

technology education the reason I took

it is because to me technology education

is where all your other subjects come

together

you can do math science English social

studies everything and it all comes

together in that classroom and you get

to make stuff so that was really neat

and it's necessary for everybody to

understand a modern world to be

technically literate

around that time NSF coined the phrase

STEM Science technology engineering

mathematics our department moved from

being technology education department to

the first integrated stem Department in

the world

and it was based on the fact that if you

teach all these things in relation to

each other they make more sense and it's

more ingrained

so I went through all the standards and

I started looking for Commons and I had

somebody a professor say to me something

else that changed my life said you're

one person and you're really biting off

a lot here one person can't change the

world

and I was like what did you just say to

me and I said yeah I said yeah you know

I said Hitler Gandhi haven't heard of

them I'm gonna try to be somewhere in

between let's see what I can do

um so communication is really important

and it's not just

what is written it's how it's

interpreted and that hit me hard and the

social studies I think that we're more

aligned in stem with social studies and

the history of the development of things

than we are necessarily between Math and

Science themselves

so to me that said you have to include

the Arts

okay there is stem Is Not Great without

the Arts we've all seen Engineers that

design ugly things or that aren't

ergonomic or they can't talk about what

they do but we've all seen Ikea

directions that's all math and they they

can transfer things through pictures in

art and the language of mathematics

so it became very important to me to

really look at the artistic element of

stem

I also made sure that steam had all of

the basic backing that it needed it is

representative of all these different

teaching theories and learning theories

that we've heard a lot about

he said to me why are you doing this I

said well it's important to teach people

how to learn you can teach people how to

learn yes you can teach people how to

learn because if people don't know how

to learn they become stagnant and they

become like my poor grandmother who

still can't program a VCR you have to be

able to grow with the times you have to

be able to be an informed user and

evaluate your needs wants and

opportunities

so understanding where your

opportunities are is really valuable and

that was a very important part of steam

so to me it boiled down to functional

literacy I left industry not because I

wanted to make a bunch of less money to

be altruistic and teach and I tell my

students the worst thing that you can do

is ruin my good time in a classroom

because then as an educator we don't

make enough money to not have a good

time doing what we're doing

and so my classroom is very intense

but it's also very fun

and we do things like ultimate Recycling

and the game in the middle is a game for

blind students to learn the different

regions of Virginia

and so all of this started really coming

together and I said okay this is where I

need to really have like a summation

sentence of what steam is

and I kept racking my brain and writing

down different things and reading

through research and

we know that there is no true holistic

education that can be taught everybody

interprets things differently so if you

talk to identical twins and you tell

them identically the same thing they're

going to interpret it slightly

differently you cannot control holistic

education

but you can understand the structure of

what you're teaching people and show and

point out all the different things that

relate to each other and try to make it

as holistic as you can

so this is what I came up with

science is the natural world it's what

we've been given technology is

everything designed up to this point so

if you want to take the world forward

which we all do that's what you're given

to start with

it's all interpreted through the active

engineering which is creating more

technology

and the Arts which is not just the Fine

Arts but the liberal arts the social

Arts The Manual Arts and everything is

understood in a basic language of math

now the mathematicians have proved that

math is the basic language and I'm not

going to take the time but if you're

going to argue with that I'd love to

argue with you about that because it

blew me away when I saw the kunian

revolution of mathematics and realize it

really is the underlying language of

everything and there's a purity to it

that's just beautiful

so what I wanted to do was working out

and I was creating

a place where everybody could learn from

each other and where I could be a

continuous learner they could further

investigate any topic and they could

fully participate whether they were

Advanced learner or whether they were

somebody with difficulties and what I

realized is all my Learners are advanced

in one way or more and have difficulties

in one way or more

and the assessment the last thing that I

was going to do in my classroom was give

kids bubble sheet tests it was just not

going to happen and I got kids to do

more paperwork by not requiring a test

at the end and keeping track in a

portfolio as they had their brainstorm

ideas and their epiphanies than I did at

giving them a test at the end and then I

found out that that really strengthened

their abilities to do well on their

tests in other classes so the other

teachers were happy with what I was

doing as well

so I had a team because my school I went

to work with was very rural very poor

Appalachia they'd never had an

engineering program before and they were

not going to let me have an engineering

program so I started an after school

engineering club and we decided that we

were going to tackle a national

engineering competition and the

assignment was to do an engineered prom

design and we decided to base it on the

periodic table of elements because most

of my students would never take

chemistry or physics and so I wanted to

get some upper level chemistry and

physics into their curriculum so I had

kids who would never talk to each other

cheerleaders and they used the term so

I'm not using it badly rednecks and you

know super religious kids and super kids

in heavy metal and they would never talk

to each other in the hallway and they

all ended up on my team and they bonded

amazing and this is the outfit that we

made we won first place Nationals our

first year out as a team

and

um we had a blast and we actually had

um these people who are really

knowledgeable about the elements send us

real elements to put on the inside of

the jacket and for the radioactive ones

we had those little glow sticks so he

glowed as he walked down the runway and

my kids learn more about geometry and

all those other things science chemistry

than they did in their other classes the

rewards were fabulous there were some

problems one of them stabbed themselves

we ended up in the hospital during

Nationals you know nothing ever goes

smoothly

um and this face of mine is just the

epitome of what have I done and I would

feel that way every day for like 30

seconds I'd wake up and go oh no what am

I going to do today how am I going to

get through today and then I'd be like

that's all right kids got it

um so steam is about where all effort is

encouraged it's representative of the

surrounding culture Korea just adopted

it as the new way to teach Across the

Nation K-12 I was there this Summer that

was an incredible experience

um it's benchmarked it can be done

inexpensively administrators love to

hear that there's a transportation

curriculum that I give there's a course

that I base where I turn it upside down

and I say this is where you are where do

you want to get to these are the roads

you can take

and that's what I have to share with you

this morning thank you