This post was contributed by Dr. Keith Verner, Founder and Scientist at LabLearner. LabLearner is a proud NCEA corporate partner.
STEM provides a wonderful opportunity to organize and integrate a significant part of the curriculum. The multi-year and cross-disciplinary nature of STEM makes it ideal for spiraling the curriculum from grade to grade, increasing depth and understanding along the way. A primarily hands-on STEM initiative develops both somatic and cognitive skills.
On the other hand, without thoroughly understanding what STEM is, there is a significant danger of “softening” the science and math component of the curriculum and producing a hodgepodge of experiences lacking clear intellectual grounding and cognitive direction.
Over the course of several NCEA webinars, papers and a book on STEM in Catholic schools, LabLearner will delve deep into the neurocognitive aspects of teaching and learning STEM. We will discuss brain structure and function as it directly relates to classroom practice. We will evaluate for ourselves the logical extensions of modern neuroscience into how we approach our jobs as educators. It will be a fun and intriguing journey of discovery for seasoned teachers and novices alike.
Check out the first part of our learning resource series, STEM Education: Giving Your Students Presents, to begin and join us for our webinar on October 18, 2017 “What STEM is and What it isn’t” to learn more.
