ETEC 562: Article 3 Review

McGrew, C.  (2012).  Engineering at the Elementary Level.   Technology & Engineering Teacher.   71(6), 19-22. 4p.

Summary

This article introduces readers to Mrs. McGrew a fourth grade teacher in Florida who wanted to know what could be done to improve STEM instruction at her school.  McGrew didn’t stop at wondering she took action and became part of a national team to develop a curriculum for elementary schools.  She helped open a STEM lab at her school.  The main challenge was figuring out when to incorporate STEM lessons into the week that is strictly dictated by how many minutes must be dedicated to reading, writing, math, science and social studies.  They had to get creative with lesson plans by incorporating many of these subjects into the STEM lessons.  The article gives an example of how reading the book The Cat in the Hat kicks off an introduction to STEM.  The article endorses the idea that for American students to become successful in the future workforce they must be exposed to STEM at an early age.

Personal Reaction

STEM is one of those terms I have heard a lot over the past few years.  I hear it thrown around a lot and about how important it is for young children to have experience with it.  The first time I ever heard about STEM was when I was a Girl Scout troop leader and there were many STEM workshops for the girls to attend.  Even though I’ve heard about STEM for many years all I know about it is that it stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.  While I know these subjects are extremely important for our students to learn I also know that they are subjects our students receive the least exposure to.  I chose this article because I wanted to see how an educator planned to incorporate STEM at the elementary level.  As I’ve already mentioned I hear about STEM but never see it in action, especially with young students.  While I thought the article was great about showing how STEM can be incorporated into the elementary school environment I wanted to know more specifics.  How often do the students visit the STEM lab and receive lessons?  Is there a different curriculum written for each grade level that builds a foundation for the next year?  The only example given in the article is that the year is started by reading The Cat in the Hat to introduce the idea of students building their own clean up machine. Do all grades do this or just one grade level?  STEM will help our students develop those higher order thinking skills that are expected for state testing so I’m glad to know educators are trying to introduce it to elementary students.