Going Full STEAM

Anchoring Creativity Within an Ocean of Change

How can we anchor ourselves to the withered floor of the classroom with reforms blowing the wind and demands for scores waving constantly, all while parents, the principal, the superintendent and our most demanding clients, the students, swamp our course? Ironically, the solution to this is to embrace creativity, since it praises  change, even invites it.

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Creative people navigate their behaviour drawn to opposite shores. On the one hand they like their stability, on the other they seek novelty. One minute they examine a new idea subjectively, the other they step back to observe it objectively. Their adult conduct serves for balance when they ride the sparkling waves of childlike behaviour.

They are like children, aren’t they? And it makes life more interesting. You’d think that
clinging to old habits provides stability. But it is creativity that stimulates us to exhibit superb living and teaching.

Add A for Arts turning STEM into STEAM. This means infusing the creative thinking processes into Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. In short, it’s practicing the 5 E’s. Explore: discovering the world. Experience: playing with the information we drew in. Examine: checking the ideas we drew on. Elevate: taking those ideas to the next level. Express: conversing, presenting, writing and sharing. Drop your anchor at the creative sea to serve as a lighthouse for your family, friends and students, inspiring them to be more and do more.

Use the 5 E’s:

1) Explore: Creativity manifests itself in a new idea, thought, or lesson plan, but it needs nourishment. Seek to enrich yourself, becoming a life-long learner. Knowledge  nowadays is dynamic, and that is the beauty of things. Students may exhibit knowledge we don’t possess. At those times they need our reassurance based on our life-long  experience. Send them back to exploring what they came up with, to tell you more about it. When you do that, you’ll be amazed to see how thirsty they have been for your guidance and confidence in them. Raise world explorers from the coziness of their web
device. And raise yourself as their mental captain.

Explore your motives by reflecting on what’s driving you to educate bright young minds into the 21st century world. When that is clear, connecting with students to facilitate the delivery of meaningful learning in all subjects will be easier.  This article’s art  coalesces with scientific facts to ignite connecting the mind and the heart. That is to  inspire towards STEAM teaching, which leads us to the next step.

2) Experience: Try to use art to activate thinking while learning science. Find a painting, or poem to make students curious about the material.

STEM subjects have been the core of our curriculum for long. Yet there is dissatisfaction with students’ scores. What do we do?

Richard Feynman was a Nobel prize Laurette due to his breakthroughs in physics, yet he was also a talented painter. A man of polarity, he displayed humor, curiosity and playfulness as his anchor. He said: “…the physics teacher has the problem of always teaching techniques, rather than the spirit, of how to go about solving physical problems.”

3) Examine: Check the lessons plans you have been using. Try beginning a lesson presenting the information to be explored, then consider the different learning  processes. Write down the following creativity skills on cards beforehand, and read them one at a time to drive experiential interaction.

Enjoying Challenges: Invite students to envision what educational product they are going to making based on what they just learned.

Emotional Intelligence: How do we feel about the product in mind? Or about the learning material?

Diversify: Jot down ideas on how to develop the product.

Tolerating Ambiguity: Help students make friends with the discomfort of not having ideas. Direct them to use the phrase: “I’m thinking.” We’re in the process.

Open-Mindedness: Having accepted ambiguity, we’re back to open-minded thinking.

Curiosity: What would make our peers curious about our educational products?

Look At it Another Way: Is there another perspective we are missing?

Identifying the Essence: Sort the ideas according to relevance and applicability.

4) Elevate: The students have a raw educational product. Invite them to refine it. And for yourself? Breath in the joy of elevated professionalism. You made learning relevant and meaningful.

5) Express: Invite students to present their products in class. Express your fascination.

Final Tips:

1) Be prepared that when we present the next card, the students gape at us for a moment. Then they dive back into the process.

2) The more we put effort into conversing whole heartedly with the students, the more they will give us feedback, feeding our drive to do our best work.

3) You don’t have to be a science teacher or an art teacher to teach STEAM. Interdisciplinary methods are beautiful. No one expects you to master a subject. Just prepare for a lesson, understanding the concept of the scientific matter you’re going to introduce. Then find a way to incorporate the arts within the content.

4) It may seem like you’re not the center of the lesson, but you are its pillar of stability as facilitator, and that is even more powerful.

5) Remember that thinking goes together with movement and sound. Tolerate the mess. It means you are on top of things, delivering 21st century teaching.

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