A Simple Plan:
October 22, 2019
STEM in education stand for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. There is an increase in the popularity of STEM in the US, and more schools, both public and private, are implementing STEM learning to their teaching and learning curriculum. It is becoming an essential part of what is being taught in various schools. The following are the key benefits of STEM education and professional development.
STEM education and professional development promote creativity and ingenuity. When all the learning objectives of STEM are sufficiently met, the learners become more creative and innovative. They become more equipped to come up with solutions to problems they face in the learning set up and are in a better position to offer practical solutions to societal issues as well. The recent developments in digital learning and artificial intelligence can be attributed to the creativity and ingenuity that STEM education foster in learners. The latest technologies were created by people who believed that if a human mind can think and imagine something, it can indeed be achieved. These creative attributes are what STEM professional development stands for.
The other benefit of STEM education and professional development is that they help to build resilience in learners. During STEM education learning activities, the learners get valuable skills in a safe environment, which allows them to make mistakes and keep trying. Learners understand that it is fine to fail, and it is essential to keep trying. STEM education emphasizes the role of failure as part of the steps to making progress in academics. When learners make mistakes, they learn to get back up and change their approach and learn in the process. This way, the confidence of learners goes up, and their resilience improves.
STEM education encourages experimentation among learners. STEM learning principles instill in learners the fact that it took risk-taking and lots of experimentation for the current technological breakthroughs to come along. Many of the inventions that we see today were imaginations of thinkers who were told that their ideas would not work, and they believed in what they dreamt, experimented, and after a series of failures, they eventually made it. STEM makes it clear to learners that new things in science, mathematics, technology, engineering, and even arts can only be achieved through experimentation.
Team building is the other benefit that comes with STEM education and professional development. STEM principles are made available to learners of different levels. Learners of different academic ability work together as a team as they try to find solutions to various problems that society is facing. They collaborate in recording data, writing reports, and giving presentations. This inculcates the spirit of teamwork in learners, and they learn to grow in a team-oriented setup.
STEM professional development and education also encourages the practical application of knowledge. Learners are equipped with skills that they can use to solve problems in the real world, and this motivates them to read and learn more because they know the knowledge can find application in real life.