Reflecting on my own experiences as a student and as a teacher leads to two generalizations of personal challenges I have encountered:<\/p>\n
Both of these issues were relevant to me in my secondary and post-secondary education. Having been a particularly strong student through most of my grade levels, I began to struggle at the end of secondary school and beginning of post-secondary when I could not simply rely on memorization of what I heard in class. I was not used to having to “work” to acquire my learning.<\/p>\n
The video we watched about Harvard graduates and the case study of Heather stated, “every time we communicate, new concepts compete with the pre-conceived ideas of our listeners” (18:38). In thinking about the growing trend or use of STEM, or STEAM, or inquiry-based learning and other related terms in the classroom, the similarity of all of these is integrating subject areas and hands on learning. I find it exciting to think of all the possibilities when we picture inter-curricular projects rather than separate boxed subject areas. Recognizing how these subject areas can co-exist simultaneously and being comfortable with it, however, seems to be one of the biggest hurdles. Nadelson et al. (2013) suggest that, “many elementary teachers have constrained background knowledge, confidence, and efficacy for teaching STEM that may hamper student STEM learning” (p. 157). “Access to appropriate resources” (p. 157) and appropriate professional development seem to also be key challenges to the integration of STEM into the elementary curriculum whose content and daily schedule seem to lend itself particularly well to the teaching of STEM. Although this article cites the problem being that the teacher certification program does not include enough science and mathematics methods and content courses, which I do agree with to a certain extent, I have found that authentic, engaging professional development is severely lacking and not often sought out. I also contend that even if there were more methods and content courses in teacher certification programs, change would not necessarily occur if the teaching in the certification programs continued to be on dated methods and content. Getting back to the original quote from the video,\u00a0new concepts compete with the pre-conceived ideas not only in our students but also in teachers. How can teachers be encouraged to challenge their own pre-conceived ideas without feeling threatened or without having the fear of a ton more work without any payoff in regards to student learning?<\/p>\n
Driver, R., Guesne, E., & Tiberghien, A. (1985). Children\u2019s ideas and the learning of science. Children\u2019s ideas in science, 1-9.<\/p>\n
Nadelson, L. S., Callahan, J. , Pyke, P. , Hay, A. , Dance, M. & Pfiester, J. (2013). Teacher STEM Perception and Preparation: Inquiry-Based STEM Professional Development for Elementary Teachers, The Journal of Educational Research, 106:2, 157-168, DOI: 10.1080\/00220671.2012.667014<\/p>\n
Shapiro, B. L. (1988). What children bring to light: Towards understanding what the primary school science learner is trying to do. Developments and dilemmas in science education, 96-120.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Reflecting on my own experiences as a student and as a teacher leads to two generalizations of personal challenges I have encountered: Memorization of so much information without application Repetition + Rote vs. Time + Experience Both of these issues were relevant to me in my secondary and post-secondary education. Having been a particularly strong […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40869,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1669382],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-conceptual-challenges"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40869"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=854"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":942,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854\/revisions\/942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}