La STEM education has more and more weight in society, since every time it is a society dominated by new technologies. This type of skills prepares people to access some of the most important future professions, encompassing a large number of experiences and skills from various fields. Thanks to this teaching, students are allowed to have the ability to solve very specific problems.
New challenges = new opportunities
El Spanish education system It has had to adapt to the new trends and needs of society. With the emergence of new technologies, it is also necessary for everyone to learn to be digital natives in an educational environment surrounded by technologies, since this is also a basic skill today.
The purpose of the STEM education it is precisely to train the new generations so that they can live in a constantly changing environment and even train them for jobs that do not yet exist due to the changes that technologies such as AI will bring.
This is why STEM education is key to the children's future, helping them to know how to work as a team, learn to make joint decisions, increase creative problem-solving skills, improve communication skills, learn and retain concepts more easily, and enhance imagination and ingenuity.
What is STEM education?
For a few years there has been a lot of talk about STEM education that has already been implemented in educational centers. Abbreviations STEM stands for Science Technology Engineering Mathematics. In other words, it is an educational discipline that tries to train students in an entertaining and practical way in the four basic pillars on which it is based: science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
Benefits of STEM education
This STEM teaching has a series of very specific advantages:
- Promotes proactive learning.
- Improves creative problem solving.
- It facilitates the learning and retention of concepts by being supported by practices.
- Prepares for the integration of ICTs.
- It encourages collaborative work.
- It enhances communication skills, key in business environments.
- It stimulates the student's self-esteem and confidence, as well as better management of emotions.
- It enhances logical thinking, creativity and imagination.
- Develops fine motor skills.
Conclusion, one way for children learn to do things by repeating them over and over again through play and inquiry. And new technologies and educational toys are making this much easier and more fun.
What is STEM?
Surely in some places you have also been able to observe the initials STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics), that is, it refers to the same STEM discipline, but the acronyms are in Spanish instead of English.
The closely related maker culture
La maker culture, learning by doing, DIY (Do It Yourself), Play-based Learning, Experiential Learning, or Project-based Learning, etc., have a lot to do with this STEM didactic format. All these concepts are aimed at arousing interest, innovating, and enhancing creativity by inventing new projects and creating your own "things".
All this culture has also been integrated into the STEM classroom, since the student leaves behind the archaic system of passive, rote and theory-based learning, and becomes the protagonist, with a learning with a strong practical base. That is to say, you learn by doing. Something that some advanced educational systems have been doing, such as those of the Nordic countries, but that in other states seems to be difficult to assimilate...
Therefore, the student will learn to solve their own problems by themselves, develop, design, experiment, and test the results to draw their own conclusions. A much more self-taught way which is the best way to learn.
What is STEM+?
Associated with STEM there is another concept that you may have also heard and that is the term STEM+ or STEMPlus. It is about the application of ICTs (Information and Communication Technology) in cyberlearning.
Do not confuse cyber learning with e-learning, or online learning, as they are different concepts. Cyberlearning builds on STEM using new technology to create effective learning experiences that were not possible before. That is, take advantage of emerging technologies to transform learning.
What is STEAM?
Associated with the term STEM is also the STEAM, which also adds artistic skills. The A refers precisely to those artistic disciplines (Arts), which also value curiosity, design, innovation, imagination, creativity and the search for diverse solutions to the same problem, but with a new creative and artistic perspective.
In the field of education and training, an increase in multidisciplinary projects based on various subjects, and that is the main characteristic that has led to the STEAM methodology.
For apply the STEAM methodology to a project either, the elementary steps would be:
- Define the objective of the project, and the necessary knowledge and resources. In addition, it is important to determine what means are available.
- Apply your imagination so that the project takes shape.
- Start creating and experimenting.
- Plan the roadmap for development. and evaluate the possibilities.
The STREAM concept
More and more acronyms are being added to STEM education, and the term has also appeared recently. STREAM (Science Technology Robotic Engineering Arts Math), that is, science, technology, robotics, engineering, art and mathematics, since robotics and AI have become key disciplines for the present and the future.
It is becoming increasingly popular to introduce robotics in education, bringing students closer to electronics, programming, mechanics, etc.. Knowledge of the future, since it is estimated that 65% of students who start education now will see professions that do not yet exist and that will arise due to the need of an increasingly technological society.
Products to start in STEM
In many specialized stores or on platforms such as Amazon, special sections of educational kits for STEM. A way for them to begin to learn, reason, be more creative and develop their imagination while they play and experiment. Some recommended products are:
- printers 3D, Arduino y Raspberry Pi
- Electrocefa - Laboratory to learn electronics for children.
- Clementony - Kids Chemistry Lab.
- Physics laboratory for primary and secondary.
- Xtrem Bots for learning programming and robotics.
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- Weather station and climate change kit.
- Dreamy Cubby - Educational Solar Robot.
- Science4you Robotics Deltabot Robotics Kit.
- Robomaker Starter Set.
- OSOYO Smart Home IoT - Home automation learning kit with Arduino.