What is STEAM?

STEAM Education is an approach to learning that uses Science, Technology, Engineering, the Arts and Mathematics as access points for guiding student inquiry, dialogue, and critical thinking.

Using STEAM education results in students who take thoughtful risks, engage in experiential learning, persist in problem-solving, embrace collaboration, and work through the creative process. These are the innovators, educators, leaders, and learners of the 21st century!

Why is STEAM Education Important?

For far too long in education, we’ve been working with the presumption of teaching to ensure our students get a “good job”. But what does that look like? We are preparing students for jobs that don’t even exist.

We are at a point where it is not only possible, but imperative that we facilitate learning environments that are fluid, dynamic, and relevant. None of us go outside and look at a tree and say, “that’s a tree, so that’s science” or, “the sky is blue, so that’s art.”

Our world is a beautiful, complex, and intricate tapestry of learning all in its own right. Why do we believe that we have the ability or the right to box it in behind brick walls and classroom doors in a place called school?

Integrating concepts, topics, standards and assessments is a powerful way to disrupt the typical course of events for our students and to help change the merry-go-round of “school.”

It takes what we do when we open the doors to the real world and places those same practices in our cycles of teaching and learning. So we can finally remove the brick walls and classroom doors to get at the heart of learning.

The STEAM Model

The pathway to STEAM is exciting, but can also be dangerous without an understanding of what STEAM truly means in both its intention and its implementation. Like its STEM predecessor, STEAM can stop short of its best manifestation without several core components:

STEAM is an integrated approach to learning which requires an intentional connection between standards, assessments and lesson design/implementation
True STEAM experiences involve two or more standards from Science, Technology, Engineering, Math and the Arts to be taught AND assessed in and through each other
Inquiry, collaboration, and an emphasis on process-based learning are at the heart of the STEAM approach
Utilizing and leveraging the integrity of the arts themselves is essential to an authentic STEAM initiative.

“What Is Steam Education?” The Institute for Arts Integration and STEAM, The Institute for Arts Integration and STEAM, 15 Oct. 2024, artsintegration.com/what-is-steam-education-in-k-12-schools/.