Why All the Questions?

It's not hard to find the acronym STEM included in educational endeavors both in and out of school. I would dare to say that it has evolved into a term that is as broad as the word love because everyone has their own interpretation and uses it to describe a wide variety of classes, workshops and experiences. If this is the case, STEM is not really new, it's just been called something different up until now.

The STEM movement challenges leaders in educational thought to look deeper into what STEM really is and how it should look in the classroom. According to Live Science, STEM is a way to engages and involves students in the learning journey while meeting curriculum standards . The integrative approach promotes connectivity among the four disciplines and brings meaningful experiences to the classroom. This applied approach engages students with phenomena that associates to real world scenarios and challenges. As STEM practices are applied, students use the lens of scientist, technologist, engineer and mathematician to apply understanding and ultimately problem solve throughout the lesson to generate ideas, prototypes or experiments that could bring possible solutions.

During the learning process, students are using productive talk to discuss their ideas and findings. Through their collaboration, they are combining ideas, evaluating materials, and recording their evidence and data in a notebook, just like a real scientist or engineer would do. Students are using vocabulary in context, generating hypotheses and testing them out. A noisy classroom can be a healthy learning environment.

What the teacher is doing is just as valuable as what the students are doing. The teacher facilitates learning with questions that spur deeper thought and critical thinking about what is happening in the lesson. Without these questions, some students miss valuable and crucial information that helps them fully process the intent of the lesson and demonstrate mastery of curriculum standards.

If you are wondering where to start, no worries! Take a look at the following links for resources to help you implement the art of questioning in your classroom. Check out the NSTA blog to connect and network with other educators on this topic.

Talk Activities Flow Chart

Talk Resource Tools Doc

 STEM Teaching Tools PDF Collection

Valuing our students as thinkers is an important way to invest in our leaders of tomorrow. Involving students in their learning, building skill sets and critical thinkers is crucial to their individual success and collectively as a nation. Incorporating and cultivating the STEM mindset is a shift in education that benefits teachers and students.