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How the pandemic shaped the future of STEAM education in schools - Education Middle East
Kay adds that an audit of technologies, curriculum and projects was carried out
to make sure that children across the school experienced a wider selection of
integrated learning. In Early Years and Key Stage 1, teachers have had to find
new ways of integrating the practical sciences and the arts so that children
develop a broader skill set to enable them to excel in their learning as they get
older.

To overcome the issue of sharing equipment and collaborating at a physically
close distance as social distancing remains in place for in-person learning,
educators are splitting the class into two halves or, in some cases, three. It
allows the students to have their own piece of equipment while having enough
space among themselves to carry out the tasks.

According to Ali, schools were forced to adapt to the new reality. “For example
with labs, I’ve been able to utilise online simulations and ‘dry’ labs,” she says.
“Last year we had blended learning for most of the year, and so our class sizes
were drastically smaller. While we may have taken longer to get through the
content, we were also able to have more meaningful inquiry activities and
explorations and provide more one-on-one feedback,” she adds.

Ali says that they plan to address the issue of overcoming the lack of learning
skills with mini-review sessions at the start of each unit. According to her, they
are building these back through increased modelling and heightened reward
systems.

“STEAM is a key driver of such competencies,” says Kay, referring to qualities
such as grit, collaboration and group reasoning. “We are now finding ways to
get the children back into our STEAM labs through innovative ways of
collaboration. Digital collaboration platforms and a tweaking of lesson plans to
cover more objectives are starting to address the gaps,” adds Kay.

Meanwhile, teachers had to adapt their
teaching techniques. “For example in Science,
the teacher performed a live demonstration of
the experiment or shared a simulation where
students could change the variables and work
on the scientific method. Google Earth and
other interactive resources helped connect
Math to real-life and look at elevation and
Jaya Bhavnani – Associate Head depression,” explains Jaya Bhavnani, Associate
of Upper School & IB Head of Upper School & IB Coordinator Dwight
Coordinator Dwight School
Dubai School Dubai.

Teachers assigned the background reading for
a lab session in advance so that students could familiarize themselves with the
scientific concepts. “They would then watch while the teacher performed the
final experiment with hazardous materials or specialized equipment via
livestream,” says Nilesh Korgaonkar, CEO, ATLAB.

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