Can SAM Labs STEAM Lessons bring the fresh perspective sorely needed in Primary schools?
Curriculum designer and former teacher Laura Pendlebury explains the need for a STEAM approach to learning in Elementary schools.
A formidable challenge
Having spent seven years teaching in Primary schools in the UK, I was excited to join SAM Labs as a Curriculum Designer. I was aware of the challenge: due to huge pressure coming from standardized testing, today’s teaching emphasis is placed, understandably, on core English and Maths skills. Science, Technology and the Arts have tended to fall by the wayside; the potential of these subjects to inspire and innovate go all too often ignored.
Our mission at SAM Labs was to find a way to reintroduce a cross-disciplinary approach whilst delivering on foundational skills, learning objectives and desired outcomes that all teachers and educators expect.
A fresh perspective
With a unique combination of hardware, software and content, SAM Labs offers a very engaging solution to bring STEAM and computational thinking into the classroom. All we needed to do was to create materials that non-technical teachers could pick up with complete ease. Easier said than done!
Under the leadership of Dr. Hilary Aylesworth, our VP of Product, we applied three fundamental design principles to our STEAM Curriculum: First and foremost, we put learners at the forefront of our design through a combination of teacher- and student-facing resources. Second, we positioned each lesson in a ‘real-world’ context with the aim of providing students with the opportunity to apply, embed and consolidate their learning. Third, we committed to reducing teacher workload and building their confidence. This third principle was all the more critical considering how little time and resources teachers have.
Our STEAM content, which we have recently released for the US and UK school market, I believe, fulfills these principles. Our content consists of standards-aligned Lesson Packs for Grades 2–5 (over 40 lessons so far).
More than meets the eye
Our hands-on, minds-on lessons are designed for groups of three students and require the SAM Space app and a SAM Labs Classroom Kit. The kit contains DC Motors, RGB LED lights, Light Sensors and accompanying building accessories. Each Lesson Pack is equipped with a combination of teacher- and student-facing resources, including Lesson Plan, Slides, Student Handout, and Student Step-by-Step. Alongside these sits Standards Alignment Maps and overview documents for each Grade, plus a suite of four Starter Lessons which introduce both students and teachers to the software and hardware, as well as the format and structure of the lessons.
Lesson Plans: Split into five sections, each with an individual objective. Unplugged learning is gained through the Warm-Up and Mini-lesson, moving onto the STEAM learning context in the Worked Example — Let’s Build!, Challenge 1, Debug It! and Challenge 2 sections. Each lesson uses a variety of learning formats, with opportunity for students to solve problems both collaboratively and independently. Students are guided toward solutions via a range of carefully positioned questions throughout, followed by open-ended Chili Challenges at the end of the lesson allowing for self-assessment and further extension.
Lesson Slides: Key information from the lesson presented in a highly visual format in order to prompt and provide pace to the lesson. Teachers may wish to refer to the supporting notes in the Lesson Plan whilst teaching, however all required instructions and guidance are presented on the Slides. Knowing the importance of visual aids when teaching, especially for an Elementary setting, screenshots of the SAM Space systems are blown up and key details unpacked.
Student Handouts: Allow students to record their learning. Each section of the lesson is supported by a task in the Handout; the keywords are drawn out and systems can be unpicked, described and annotated. Alternative systems can be recorded, questions answered and diagrams drawn. Each activity is directly linked to the fulfillment of the learning objectives outlined in the Standards Alignment Map for each lesson.
Step-by-Steps: Guides which provide the perfect supplement for students who may have missed earlier parts of the lesson or who require slightly more guidance with their instruction. This resource can also be used to facilitate different teaching models, such as a ‘carousel’ style of learning.
Finally making a difference
Eight months on, the SAM Labs Content team and I are thrilled at what we have been able to achieve; that is, providing the tools, know-how and mind-set to spark a change and cultivate STEAM learning from the very beginnings in Elementary education.
The way children are taking to experimenting, finding and fixing errors; the way they persevere and keep going until they find a better solution are life-long skills that we ought to celebrate and foster. These skills form the new 21st Century yardstick, surely?
The feedback received so far on our all-encompassing Lesson Packs has been overwhelmingly positive. Perhaps what is most heartening of all is the confidence educators have felt in the knowledge they can pick up each Lesson Pack and teach without the need for research or resource preparation; things we recognize they often lack the time or energy to do.
The next few months will see us launch another offering — our Learn to Code Curriculum — which will help students in Grades 4–8 master computational thinking. So watch out for my next post!
