What Does a Complete STEAM Education Look Like?

STEAM—it looks as though Dad will have to build a complete STEAM framework for Xiaobao himself. STEAM is an educational approach that differs from traditional instruction centered on individual subjects and textbook knowledge. It is a hands-on, interdisciplinary approach to education. Success in anything depends not on a single capability but on several capabilities working together. Developing a high-tech electronic product, for example, requires science and technology to innovate its functions, but also an attractive appearance and integrated talents such as those found in the arts. A single skill is no longer enough to support the development of future talent. What we will need are people with a broad combination of capabilities. This is the thinking behind the exploration of STEAM education. STEAM education originated as a U.S. government educational initiative to strengthen K–12 instruction in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics. STEAM’s predecessor is STEM: the initials of Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics. It encourages children to develop and improve in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, building their overall competencies and thus their global competitiveness. Arts has recently been added, making the approach more comprehensive. Educational technology products that help children learn mathematics and science continue to emerge. These five subjects also break down conventional disciplinary boundaries by combining technology with engineering and arts with mathematics. STEAM education does not merely advocate learning knowledge from these five subjects. It advocates a new approach to teaching: children work with their hands to complete projects that interest them and relate to their lives, learning subject-specific and interdisciplinary knowledge through the process. STEAM is a departure from traditional education built around standardized tests. It represents a modern educational philosophy that places more emphasis on the learning process than on the outcome. Fundamentally, we are willing to let children make mistakes, try different ideas, and hear different viewpoints. In contrast to exams, we want children to create knowledge they can apply in real life. We encourage hands-on practice so they can find the answers they seek and develop their potential. STEAM theory advocates learning across disciplines and emphasizes connections between learning and the real world. Subjects support and complement one another, developing together. Their interaction cultivates a range of skills and understanding, with an emphasis on children’s initiative in exploring. ---- Yet many STEAM providers in the market are essentially without a coherent system or depth, doing little more than assembling science experiments or teaching content. Maker education can begin with small projects, but these providers mistake simple tricks for technological innovation. Children get only a little knowledge and some fun from each experiment. Robotics training providers typically import a set of hardware and piece together some entertaining construction kits. Behind this, there is no visible framework for developing capabilities; it is essentially a sophisticated toy. Some providers simply buy foreign hardware and courses, do no updates or development for years, and use material that has already been phased out abroad. --- A complete STEAM education should begin with practical problems in real life and have children develop their own approaches to solving them. Without this step, STEAM instruction loses its most fundamental basis. Inquiry-based teaching is what enables children to grasp the essence of STEAM education. Genuine STEAM education follows the process of scientific inquiry or engineering practice. It is a project-based curriculum, with teaching organized around projects that guide children through inquiry or practice. During that process, children construct their own knowledge and skills, with the goal of developing integrated capabilities from within. Children should be able to describe the problem themselves and identify the constraints on solving it. Next, they gather information through various channels and examine previous approaches. Drawing on that information and their own knowledge, they propose every solution they can think of. They select the best one and build a model, use materials to make a physical object that realizes their idea, test it, evaluate it, and further improve the design. This is a complete inquiry-based learning process. Ask most robotics training providers what their courses do for children, and the standard answers are hands-on skills, logical thinking, creativity, and so on. Ask how those capabilities are developed and whether the approach actually works, and the response is usually a blank look. Ask most science-experiment providers the same question, and they will say that they spark children’s interest in science. In fact, children’s interest in science is innate. These programs do help sustain that interest to some extent, but that is all. Their emphasis on interest is, at its core, a reflection of their own lack of deeper thinking, let alone a teaching framework. The result is that both the courses and the teachers lack clear goals and merely get through the lesson. A sound approach needs an explicit assessment framework. Learning objectives should be divided into one-third knowledge, one-third technical skills, and one-third integrated capabilities. Technical skills and integrated capabilities need clearly defined instructional activities to support them.