Proposing STEAM Curriculum for K–8 Elementary Schools

Introduction: Education Reform and the Case for Change

The topic of education has sparked a contentious and polarizing debate within the United States and abroad. In particular, the United States is grappling with significant changes in education policy and regulation. These changes come with various issues and opinions from those within the industry. For example, the shift toward a more hybrid education model — where students learn in both in-person and online formats — has caused a fundamental change in how lessons are administered. Testing procedures that no longer rely simply on multiple-choice questioning, but instead incorporate far more comprehensive assessments of student learning, require a unique teaching skill set. Even strained government education budgets are forcing school districts to achieve better education outcomes with fewer financial resources. All of these elements coalesce to form a very exciting but also highly contentious education environment.

It is this juxtaposition between change within the industry and its overall resistance to it that makes an update to school curriculum necessary. Schools can no longer rely on the same antiquated methodologies and expect better results. Instead, changes will need to be made to curriculum to ensure students are competitive in the workplace and can become productive members of society (Atkinson, 2012).

Globalization and the Growing Importance of STEAM

Globalization has created an interesting dynamic as it relates to education. Many nations are catching up with — and even surpassing — the United States in their ability to educate children. This has created an arms race for talent around the world, with grave implications for America's competitive position going forward. Without question, the future of society will be heavily dependent on science, technology, and mathematics. These areas will be critical inputs into industries such as artificial intelligence, data analytics, autonomous driving, and other innovations. To better position America to compete with its international counterparts, investment in STEAM-related curriculum is required. This document is therefore a proposal to incorporate STEAM-related classes in grades K through 8 as an elective for all elementary schools (Breiner, 2012).

STEAM — which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics — represents the core competencies that form the backbone of the coming technological revolution. Research has shown that the jobs of the future will be heavily concentrated in these fields. In fact, the Department of Education anticipates that STEM occupations will grow roughly 9% by 2030, compared to non-STEM related positions that are forecast to grow at just 5%. Likewise, the median annual wage of STEM-related positions is projected to be roughly $87,000 by the year 2030, compared to just $40,000 for non-STEM positions. It is therefore important to expose children to these subjects early so as not to discourage them from engaging with the material later in life. Not only will this improve learning outcomes, but it will properly prepare students for future job prospects by exposing them to a unique learning framework.

STEAM's Interdisciplinary and Inquiry-Based Approach

One of the primary benefits of STEAM courses is that they focus on providing an adaptable framework for education that highlights relationships between subject areas rather than reviewing them individually in isolation. Under older curricula, subjects were often taught in silos with little reference to how they relate to other disciplines. For example, the marketing discipline borrows heavily from psychology. Through a STEAM process, students are better able to determine how each of these fields relates to the other. In marketing, for instance, many psychological concepts are at play that allow businesses to encourage purchasing behavior. Concepts such as social proof, reciprocity, and authority are all heavily grounded in psychological principles that are often not taught in the marketing course itself. It is therefore difficult for a student to connect the two disciplines without taking separate courses in each. STEAM attempts to address this by providing a more comprehensive approach to learning that combines multiple disciplines (Weber, 2013).

Likewise, STEAM is far more inquiry-based than traditional curriculum — a critically important element for students entering the future workforce. The antiquated approach to education was largely based on regurgitating information: a teacher would lecture and present facts or theory, the student would memorize the material, and then recall it for a multiple-choice test. After the test, the student would often forget what had been learned, only to repeat the cycle for the next course or chapter. In this model, many students learn how to pass a test rather than how to truly learn and commit material to long-term memory. Students would simply memorize information to pass an assessment without genuinely incorporating it into their own development.

With STEAM, courses are grounded in inquiry and problem-solving — skills that students can leverage throughout their lives. Here, students learn to think critically rather than simply memorize information (Wang, 2011). This shift from passive reception to active engagement represents one of the most meaningful differences between STEAM and traditional instructional approaches.

References

Atkinson, R. D. (2012). Why the current education reform strategy won't work. Issues in Science and Technology, Spring 2012: 29–36.

Breiner, J. M., Harkness, S. S., Johnson, C. C., & Koehler, C. M. (2012). What is STEAM? A discussion about conceptions of STEAM education and partnerships. School Science and Mathematics, 112(1): 3–11.

Sanders, M. (2009). STEAM, STEAM education, STEAMmania. The Technology Teacher, December/January, 2009: 20–26.

Wang, H., Moore, T. J., Roehrig, G. H., & Park, M. S. (2011). STEAM integration: Teacher perceptions and practice. Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research, 1(2): 1–13.

Weber, E., Fox, S., Levings, S. B., & Bouwma-Gearhart, J. (2013). Teachers' conceptualizations of integrated STEAM. Academic Exchange Quarterly, 17(3): 1–9.