Thus far in this blogging journey of STEM literacy enlightenment I have contributed many of my own thoughts and ideas, with a plethora of resources to reference at one’s leisure. (Does this count as leisure reading material?) This post, however, is specifically dedicated to the thoughts and ideas of those who have made a commitment to thoroughly researching this area of education - the experts. Amongst the plethora of wisdom imparted by the many experts from a host of academic articles are a variety of strategies that can be used in the classroom to begin implementing more opportunities for STEM literacy. Following is a select few of some of my favourite strategies that I’ve come across during this miniature literature review. 1. “Ten Important Words Plus” strategy (Wood et. al., 2011): Using an article or text, students each pick out a list of 10 keywords and write them on a sticky note. The class as a whole creates a bar graph using the sticky notes, to illustrate what key terms they had chosen as the most important. A discussion about the significance of the chosen keywords and their frequency follows. (Wood et. al, 2011)
2. Using jigsaws as a literacy strategy: “Jigsaws are an effective strategy for helping learners chunk large topics of knowledge into smaller parts, improve reading and writing skills (particularly their ability to analyze and synthesize information), create artifacts (i.e. poster board, presentation slides, digital content, etc.), presentation skills (speaking and listening), and interactions/collaboration with peers.” (Valenzuela, 2018) 3. Children’s literature in the STEM classroom: “According to Barclay, Benelli, and Schoon (2012) and Wells and Zeece (2007), children’s literature has the potential to generate interest and motivation, provide context, invite communication, and connect science information in ways that students can relate facts to their world. Incorporating children’s literature, more specifically science trade books, provides a situated perspective that results in cognitive functions, such as reasoning, remembering, and thinking critically (Carr et al., 2001; Monhardt & Monhardt, 2006; Sackes, Trundle, & Flevares (2009). By incorporating this type of literature, teachers can introduce different contexts, concepts, and cultures that can initiate discussion about a science topic.” (Hagheghi-Mahzoon et. al, 2018)
There are a fairly wide variety of target age groups represented amongst these strategies, however, most of them can easily be tweaked as necessary to fit almost any grade between K-12. Aside from some helpful and unique practical ideas, there are other snippets of wisdom that I gleaned from reading these articles regarding STEM literacy in the classroom. The first comes from Soules et. al. in their 2014 article Embedding Multiple Literacies into STEM Curricula: “While reading for basic comprehension is a strong component of informational literacy, students must also read scientific articles and come to some understanding of their structure.” (Soules et. al., 2014) I’ve further discussed the idea of having students read academic articles (or at least have an introduction to them) in my post here. Another, more recent, article, by Falloon et. al in March 2020, continues to expand on the idea of STEM literacy across curricula: “At a classroom level, some authors indicated interdisciplinary STEM affords teachers freedom to plan and teach using pedagogies that more closely replicate ‘real world’ processes (e.g. Bennett and Monahan 2013; Portz 2015; STEM Task Force 2014; Techakosit and Nilsook 2018; Top and Sahin 2015). These include project-based models that integrate disciplines and support students’ STEM capabilities, skills and collaboration, through ‘meaningful activities that are relevant to real-world issues’ (Capraro and Jones 2013, p. 52). “ (Falloon et. al., 2020). One last piece of excellent advice that I found during my reading outlined the importance of integrating literacy strategies into the classroom in a meaningful way: “Second, content and pedagogy also must blend; as mentioned in the National Science Edu- cation Standards (National Research Council, 1996), “There should be less emphasis on activities that demonstrate and verify science content” and more emphasis on those “that investigate and analyze science questions” (p. 113). This means a reduced concern for covering content and an increased emphasis in helping a student learn. “ (Zollman, n.d.) Overall, consulting the experts in the field for some ideas of strategies that have had success in the field of STEM literacy has proven to be incredibly beneficial. All of the papers, journal entries and magazine articles that I have consulted are referenced below, for further information. My take-away from this mini-series of STEM literacy exploration is this: start small, and gradually build up the literacy requirements of the classroom, but make the activities meaningful to the content and to adequately incorporate literacy strategies. References:Falloon, G., Hatzigianni, M., Bower, M., Forbes, A., Stevenson, M. (2020). Understanding K-12 STEM education: a framework for developing STEM literacy. Journal of Science Education and Technology. 29: 369-385.
Hagheghi-Mahzoon, M., Yebra, R., Johnson, R.D., Sohn, L.N. (2018). Fostering a greater understanding of science in the classroom through children’s literature. Texas Journal of Literacy Education. 6(1): 41-50. Soules, A., Nielsen, S., LeDuc, D., Inouye, C., Singley, J., Wildy, E., Seitz, J. (2014). Embedding multiple literacies into STEM curricula. College Teaching. 62(4): 121-128. Wood, K., Jones, J., Polly, D. (2011). STEM literacies: integrating reading, writing, and technology in science and mathematics. Middle School Journal. September, 2011, pg. 55-62. Valenzuela, J. (2018). Literacy strategies in STEM education. Children’s Technology and Engineering. March, 2018, pg 26-29. Zollman, A. (n.d.). Learning for STEM literacy; STEM literacy for learning. School Science and Mathematics. 112(1): 12-19. Comments are closed.
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