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Final Blog!

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to my blog! Sad to say that this is in fact my last reflection on STEM education in the classroom.       This week I am excited to speak about a very fun science related activity that was done in class! During this class, the focus was on teaching science in classrooms in an inquiry-based way and allowing students to take agency in their learning. Inquiry is not about invented context or external motivators but about framing the world that learners already inhabit (Davis et al. , 2019).      The above pictures are ones that were taken on a walk around Brock University. In pairs, we were looking for things around campus that as teachers we would find interesting. Then back in class, we came up with questions that students may ask about these pictures. From this, we came up with short lesson plan ideas that could be implemented to create a hands-on learning experience for children. My partner and I came up with a lesson that focused on the surrounding are
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Blog #4: Science

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 Welcome back to my STEM blog!  This past session we focused on science in the classroom. A point that struck me during this session is the discussions between scientific facts and scientific method. A scientific fact is a static collection of observations, principles, and laws on how the universe works (Davis et al., 2019). Meanwhile, a scientific method is a rigorous strategy of experimental, observation, and verification that is used to validate scientific facts (Davis  et al.,  2019).  During small group discussion, the conversation was focused on how in a classroom most lessons tend to focus students' attention on scientific facts. When stepping into a typical classroom during a science lesson, one would typically see students learning from a textbook. To me this is teaching scientific facts. Curriculum guides and classroom resources tend to focus on the facts that need to be memorized, laws that are applied, and procedures to be mastered through classic experiments (Davis  et
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Blog #3: Mathematics in the Classroom

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 Hello everyone and welcome to blog post number 3!      This week, the focus was on mathematics in the classroom! As a future math teacher, I have so much to reflect about! A very prominent topic was how math can be taught and the implications for what is taught (Davis et al., 2019). When teaching math, the focus seems to be on the formulas and the final answers. It has been structured around the assumption that math is trapped in a box of logical reasoning (Davis  et al.,  2019). Math is so much more than calculations and answers, it is problem solving and higher order thinking, it is thinking outside of the box!      During this week's session, the class was divided into groups and had to solve two different math problems. One was a problem related to volume and the other was problem that related to missing variables. After everyone had some time to come up with different strategies, there was a discussion on which way the problem was solved. This surprised me! As someone who has
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Blog #2 :The Definition of Learning

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 Welcome back! Blog number 2 is going to focus on the definition of learning and the implications it has in the classroom.      Learning is a very complicated word to define! As a future teacher one thing I do know is that I will be committed to being a lifelong learner. During this session, the main point that stood out to me was that ideas no not exist in isolation and teachers can use this and the different learning theories to improve their teaching practices. To me, the different learning theories do not exist separately but together; one theory is not more efficient than the other. The different learning theories discussed are folk theories, behaviourist theories, constructivist theories, and socio-cultural theories (Davis et al., 2019). Each of these theories has their strengths and weaknesses in their ideas and implications for teaching. However, the assumption here is that knowledge is an object that exist outside of individuals and learning is the process of gaining knowledge
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Blog #1: Learning in the New Age

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Hello everyone, welcome to my first blog reflection post!     As the world changes, the ideas and thoughts on education and skills are changing with it. Thinking about new skills that are needed in this changing world brings forth many questions about what an education needs to involve in classrooms today. When thinking about '21st century skills', a lot of varying ideas surprised me. To me, 21st century skills include collaboration, technology use and interpersonal skills. In a classroom today, these seem to be difficult to incorporate- why the resistance?            The main points of this discussion were the importance of updating what skills society thinks are important and how these can be seen in a classroom setting. In a technological based society, there needs to be a shift in the main focuses of education. STEM education needs attention and needs to be altered for todays's world (Davis et al.,  2019). Most of todays's classroom designs, curriculum, teaching met
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Welcome Blog

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  Hello everyone and welcome to my STEM blog! My name is Madison Anderson, and I am a student at Brock University in the the Concurrent Education program at the junior/ intermediate level with a mathematics teachable.   This blog, titled Ms. Anderson's STEM Blog, sets out to reflect and discuss different perspectives and issues in learning and teaching STEM related subjects. In this changing world, the perspectives on STEM curriculum and its' influences are extremely important. The challenges that STEM based learning and teaching face are endless and the goal of this blog is to critically reflect and analyze my experience as a lifelong learner and future educator. STEM subjects can be really daunting for students and teachers! Throughout this blog the principles, theories and concepts of STEM education will be reflected upon to begin to understand how to effectively teach these subjects. As someone who is passionate about the subject of mathematics, I hope to share the new ways
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