Stem Infusing The Elementary Classroom

Make learning relevant with STEM essential questions This engaging, teacher-friendly guide helps teachers quickly and confidently infuse STEM concepts into all content areas. Real-world vignettes, sample lesson templates, discussion questions and immediately applicable action steps help you seamlessly promote college and career ready skills. Use this inspiring guide to: Deepen all content areas, including English/ Language Arts Promote the 4Cs: communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity Require students to take risks to solve problems Differentiate instruction and scaffold support Expand students’ specific measurable capabilities Incorporate design skills into the curricula Save valuable time and confidently develop standards-aligned STEM projects in all content areas!

Make learning relevant with STEM essential questions This engaging, teacher-friendly guide helps teachers quickly and confidently infuse STEM concepts into all content areas. Real-world vignettes, sample lesson templates, discussion questions and immediately applicable action steps help you seamlessly promote college and career ready skills. Use this inspiring guide to: Deepen all content areas, including English/ Language Arts Promote the 4Cs: communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity Require students to take risks to solve problems Differentiate instruction and scaffold support Expand students’ specific measurable capabilities Incorporate design skills into the curricula Save valuable time and confidently develop standards-aligned STEM projects in all content areas!

This textbook offers practical guidelines for integrating science, technology, engineering, and mathematics into the elementary classroom in the context of addressing real-world problems, and cultivating in students high-level thinking and problem-solving skills. Designed to equip teachers and future teachers with tools to create and implement standards-based STEM curriculum and cognitively demanding tasks, author Sherri Cianca offers hands-on, easily implemented strategies that foster student reasoning, autonomy, and humanity. This fresh approach to STEM teaching empowers teachers (preservice and inservice) and other leaders to better understand the standards and better design effective instructional practices. The chapters work together to advance teachers’ abilities to achieve mastery-level understanding of content, translate standards into student-friendly curriculum, and create a robust learning environment. Each chapter contains "probes" to uncover incomplete and inaccurate conceptions and to focus attention on key learning elements. Chapter summaries and "Reflect and Apply" sections reinforce professional development, and appendices expand on chapter content and provide rich examples of STEM units, curriculum, and assessment criteria. Dr. Cianca's vision is that teachers serve as well-equipped change agents that will empower their students to transfer STEM learning into applications that will impart a positive impact on our future world.

" Integrating STEM Teaching and Learning Into the K- 2 Classroom is a critically important contribution toward advancing STEM teaching and learning. It blazes a trail for early elementary classroom practitioners to reflect the latest thinking in STEM education, and it provides a means by which early elementary educators can meaningfully contribute to America' s STEM education movement." -- Jeff Weld, former senior policy advisor on STEM education, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Here' s proof that STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) isn' t just for the big kids! This book' s 10 chapters are a mini-course on blending authentic, phenomena-driven, integrated STEM teaching and learning into busy K- 2 classrooms. Based in both research and real-world experience, Integrating STEM Teaching and Learning Into the K- 2 Classroom provides professional learning experiences that help you make connections between STEM topics and the everyday activities you' re already doing with your students. The book answers the following questions: * How is K- 2 STEM education different from what you' re already doing, and how can you do it without squeezing more into your already-full schedule? * What are the key elements in an integrated STEM classroom, and how do they work together? * How do you use STEM in concert with your core reading block? To show you how it all works in real life, the book provides descriptions of four completed projects from actual classrooms-- projects with names like " Baby Bear' s Chair" and " A Pond Habitat." An easy-to-follow template shows you the process for developing your own STEM experiences. The final chapter describes how one district created a culture of STEM teaching and learning when education partners committed to working together toward a common goal. Researchers agree that STEM education is important in early childhood. Integrating STEM Teaching and Learning gives you the background and strategies to engage your young students in STEM without overloading your day-- or overwhelming yourself.

2021 SPE Outstanding Book Award Honorable Mention Mistakes We Have Made: Implications for Social Justice Educators is an edited collection from eleven authors with a wealth of experience teaching in K-12 schools and utilizing culturally relevant practices. This book is current with social justice research and strategies, while connecting to the audience through personal vignettes in each chapter. The personal connection of research supported ideas to help new teachers avoid the authors' early career mistakes in the classroom is at the center of this text. The content is organized into three themes: Inclusive Classrooms, Curriculum Implementation, and Professionalism. Reflection questions are provided at the end of each chapter, which will guide the practitioners to self-reflect and plan next steps accordingly. The e-book provides links to videos, strategies, articles, and other supplemental resources to make this text a “one-stop shop.” Mistakes We Have Made speaks to several audiences, from pre-service teachers to new teachers, to any practitioner that needs a new perspective on teaching with a social justice lens. It can be used as a text in a variety of college courses, professional development workshops, or as a gift for new teachers. Perfect for courses such as: Social Justice for Educators | Diverse Perspectives for Educational Leaders | Diversity and Multiculturalism | Sociocultural Foundations in Education | Issues in Education | Elementary Teacher Foundations | Sociology of Education

How do you create an innovative and equitable classroom experience that prepares elementary students for jobs that don’t yet exist while placing a critical focus on mathematics and science content and practice standards—all while meeting the demands of high-stakes testing? The answer to this question is Step into STEAM, which provides a practical and accessible approach for educators to create meaningful and transformative learning experiences for each and every student. This book guides and inspires K–5 educators through a seamless process of designing and implementing STEAM inquiries that align carefully to key mathematics and science content and practices. Taking an opposite approach to existing resources that provide collections of disjointed STEAM activities, this book empowers teachers and schools to build cohesive and sustainable STEAM infrastructures—grounded in grade-level standards and purposeful assessment—to deepen the mathematics and science learning of each and every student. STEAM instruction is for each and every student; STEAM instruction is about mathematics; and STEAM instruction can and should be implemented for student success and to engage students in making their community and our world a better place. Loaded with resources to help K–5 teachers and instructional leaders develop, implement, and assess meaningful STEAM inquiries, this research-based book: Provides practical, on-the-go resources to help busy teachers get started in creating purpose-driven STEAM instruction Allows educators to interact deeply with the content and create equitable STEAM experiences that blend community and societal interests Includes online companion printable resources to help educators jumpstart or deepen STEAM learning throughout a school or district, supporting STEAM professional development, professional learning communities, and book studies Checklists, pictures, graphic organizers, reflection questions, "Try it Out!" sections, and example STEAM inquiries help teachers seamlessly connect multiple subject areas, create transformative learning experiences, engage elementary students in developing creativity and empathy, and enable students to solve meaningful and authentic problems for others—all to prepare students for their bright futures. Make the most of your limited instructional time and become part of the Step into STEAM movement! "Through carefully crafted research-based frameworks; inspirational, authentic, and approachable practical strategies rooted in the reform efforts of student-centered STEAM learning; and opportunities for professional self-reflection, Step into STEAM rightfully re-elevates educators to their proper places as innovation experts and agents of change in their own classrooms, schools, districts, and communities. An inspirational step in a needed direction, this book from Drs. Bush and Cook is what educators have been craving: a guide to transforming ourselves, our learning spaces, and our profession." Richard Cox, Jr. Expert STEAM Teacher Instructional Coach Bullitt County Public Schools "Step into STEAM offers a rare opportunity for anyone concerned with education to consider what learning would be like with equity, empathy, and experience. By providing examples from teachers who have dared to put children first, this book offers more than just new way to teach, it offers hope for youth today. By considering what youth will need to be successful in jobs that are not yet created, Cook and Bush provide a platform for educators to create authentic, real-world problem-solving in classrooms with attention on the often forgotten about component of STEAM—the M! As a proponent of STEAM education, my recommendation is to grab this book and watch your students love learning again!" Cassie Quigley Associate Professor of Science Education at University of Pittsburgh Author of An Educator′s Guide to STEAM: Engaging Students Using Real-World Problems

This compendium is a collection of STEM-related articles from the journal Science and Children. It provides a variety of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics content and classroom activities for PreK-5 science teachers. --

This book will help educators design STEM programs and lessons that foster teamwork and thinking while getting students actively involved in their own learning. There are many practical ideas and lesson plans that will help teachers reach both eager and reluctant learners. The suggestions for STEM curriculum and instruction are research based and standards driven. This book looks at collaborative learning, differentiation, and diversity all the while building instruction in the STEM subjects and good hands-on materials. This is done in a way that is designed to help every student feel successful and part of the class as a whole. It shows a deep respect for the unique relationship between teachers and their students as they try to navigate their way into the future. Suggestions are designed to help learners question, analyze, interpret, problem solve, and discover. The STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering, and math are essential to understanding the world of today and the world of tomorrow. The authors view is that it takes more than innovation alone; for innovation to be useful, products of the imagination must be arranged in ways that allow them to be used to solve real world problems.