Harnessing Student Interests: The Power of the Project Approach in Early STEM Learning

Abstract

Course name Instructor’s name Assignment due date Module 1 Discussion: Sharing Project Examples My project topic is “community” and it is designed to encourage students to share their ideas, knowledge, and experiences on the subject. The project presents opportunities for learners to explore different types of communities and gain knowledge in content areas including Language Arts, Math, Social-Emotional Learning, Science, Art, and Social Studies. The project approach promotes creativity in learning and promotes math and science concepts among young children (Charlesworth & Lind, 2016). While my current practice was goal-oriented and narrowed the scope of instruction, the project approach encourages open-ended teaching where children raise questions on the topic. I reviewed my project example from the Community Playthings website (https://www.communityplaythings.com/) that describes different approaches that promote active and inclusive learning. The article by Chard (2016) shows that the project approach harnesses the interests of the students to meet their learning needs. It is different from my practice that mostly relies on the teacher to guide and define activities in the classroom. The project approach offers more freedom to the learners who find their own unique ways to interact with learning materials. It is a tested approach that has valuable impacts on learning STEM concepts from an early age particularly at the pre-school level (Clements & Sarama, 2016). By implementing the project approach, I will offer my students interesting ways to learn math and science concepts through real world experiences. References Chard, S. (2016, February). The project approach and STEM: A powerful combination. Community Playthings. https://www.communityplaythings.com/resources/articles/the-project-approach-and-stem. Charlesworth, R. & Lind, K.K. (2016). Math and Science for Young Children. (8th ed.) [City, State]. Cengage Learning. Clements, D. H., & Sarama, J. (2016). Math, science, and technology in the early grades. The Future of...