What is STEAM Education?
The STEAM education curriculum stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics. It is a more comprehensive approach to the traditional STEM curriculum we are familiar with. Alongside from the core science subjects such as chemistry and physic, as well as math subjects, the STEAM curriculum also covers several forms of arts such as dancing, painting, sculpting, and writing etc.
Combining arts in the traditional STEM curriculum that we know makes our students more flexible and practical rather than limited by technicalities. It trains our students to be more adaptive in any given situation.
What's the difference between STEAM and traditional STEM education?
The STEAM education is almost similar to traditional STEM education but with only one key point difference, which is the “A” that stands for Arts. This focuses on science, technology, engineering, math and this time it also covers the arts subject side.
These both educations have something to do with applying scientific skills and knowledge in solving problems. STEM and STEAM are primarily the same in various aspects. Both have multidisciplinary approaches in their own subject matter. Projects in these education courses in school need simultaneous application and exercises of different concepts. Nevertheless, there are also some dissimilarities in the approach of learning and teaching between STEM and STEAM.
The primary purpose here is to offer students the opportunities to learn the relation between science and arts. Students will gain various sets of knowledge and technical skills. With these methods they can be much more artistic and enhance their problem-solving expertise.
What's the importance and benefits of STEAM education?
This manner of combining arts subjects in traditional STEM education, STEAM is a comprehensive approach that attaches extra value to science-aligned education. This STEAM education gives the chance for both students and teachers for more extensive learning. This will equip them to face real challenges in life.
These scientific principles and technological innovations will allow the students the opportunities in several areas of artistic ventures. This will offer aspiring students great job opportunities involving using technology in creative purposes. Its main purpose is to promote not only creativity but also technical thinking which are necessary once you're already building a career.
What are the benefits of STEAM Education?
Comprehensive STEAM education can be very useful to this present-day workplace. The purpose may be for science research work, normal office work, the modern workplace now requires an effective associative collaboration.
There are several benefits of STEAM Education. But these are the main uses of this curriculum.
- Develop Critical Thinking Skills
-Critical thinking is the capability to scrutinize the accurate and logical level of a certain information, and form a reasoning and informed point of view about a specific matter. An ability to identify misleading and irrelevant facts.
- Build Social Skills
-STEAM curriculum enables you to have a comprehensive approach, it will help a student improve their emotional capabilities to judge and social skills. These will teach students to be expressive and socially flexible to adapt and be able to work with others like a team player. Students will be capable of dealing with types of personalities. Also, in the process they will be developing leadership, friendship and empathy.
- Boosts Encouragement and Curiosity
-STEAM education will help students encourage themselves to get involved in a wide range of topics and activities. It will develop them to be expressive to ask good deep questions about why and how things work.
- Collaborative Approach
-Students will be taught to learn how to work with others rather than competing with them. This will teach the students to contribute their skills, talent and knowledge especially when it comes to projects or group activities. In this approach, they will know that collaboration is a two-way process of sharing and receiving contribution to achieve a common goal or project.
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Exposure to multimedia and multiplatform education
-Students will be exposed to the use of various platforms, different kinds of media and not only limited to scientific instruments and laboratory equipment. These will also cover several hardware, art materials, modern machines, digital tools and its methods such as use of CAD when you are designing an establishment or machine.
- Improves Creativity
-STEAM education will encourage students to develop their own instructions, decision making and method of problem-solving whenever they are achieving a certain project or activity. Not just by following a fixed instruction given, this improves their technical knowledge to decide to make their own method, develop imagination and be creative.
Student’s knowledge should not only be limited to academic concepts and theoretical, There are also important applications of this knowledge and skills in real-life that should be taught to them. These academic subjects like abstract mathematics for example, should also be relevant when applied in real life situations such as household budgeting for instance. The relevance of arts in science curriculum builds student's logical skills and computation. Many factors are considered aside from technical aspects. For example, when a student is solving a problem with climate change, it needs an integrative approach but also requires significant geopolitical and socio economic considerations. Thus, computation is a good factor when solving these problems.
STEAM education is important especially when it comes to equipping students for the real challenges in life. The comprehensive and combined approach of STEAM education helps a student to be more ready and adaptable to broad challenges in the real world.
