Introducing Sketchnotes to Your STEM Classroom
May 6, 2024Using the 5E Model in STEM Instruction
May 6, 2024
KEY POINTS
- Provide context to STEM lesions via career connections.
- Invite guest speakers to visit your class.
- Implement career showcase projects.
The knowledge and skills that students gain in the modern STEM classroom are vital to a healthy, well-rounded education. Students should also understand how this content corresponds to their future and the wide variety of STEM careers available to them. Taking the time to connect STEM lessons to real-world, potential career paths is sure to increase student engagement and passion in the STEM subjects.
LINK STEM CONCEPTS TO STEM CAREERS
As you and your students make your way through STEM lessons, engage with your students and discuss how the content and new skills they are learning correspond to STEM careers. Real-world, career-oriented discussions like these are a great way to give your students a sense of purpose and context behind the STEM concepts they are interacting with. If you and your students are engaging in a coding project, take some time to explore the knowledge that professional computer programmers need to succeed in their fields. If your students are growing plants as part of a biology project, explain to them how the skills they are developing correspond to careers in agriculture and botany.
BRING IN THE EXPERTS
To further engage students, invite guest speakers to come and talk with your class. Interactions like these are a great way to motivate and inspire your students. Try to seek out guest speakers from a variety of STEM subjects. To help you select the right speakers for your classroom, have students conduct some research on a number of STEM subjects and have them select the areas that interest them the most. Then, take the most popular careers listed and seek out local professionals to come speak to your class.
ASSIGN PROJECTS THAT SHOWCASE STEM CAREERS
To give your students the widest perspective possible, consider conducting a class project that showcases the many types of STEM careers available to them. Have each student in your class pick a unique STEM career to research. Once they have collected their information, have them present it to the rest of the class in the form of a slide presentation or a poster. This can be a great way to highlight obscure STEM careers that usually go unnoticed as well as careers that students may have previously not considered to be STEM-related. As students experience the great variety of STEM careers out there, they will gain a greater understanding of just how important the STEM subjects are to the modern, and future, workforce.
