Fostering Early STEM Creativity: Classroom Observation Insights

Abstract

Course name Instructor’s name Assignment due date Module 6: Field Observation Journal for STEM in Early Childhood For the field observation journal on teaching STEM in early childhood, I was unable to observe an actual learning environment and I chose to watch videos. While the experience is different from an actual observation of children in the classroom, the videos provide a rich and diverse exposure on how to children learn STEM concepts. The settings of the videos were different in terms of the participants and the activities that the children were engaged in during the lessons. I found the video by Drew (2015) unique since the teacher invited the parents to participate in the lesson by making observations and commenting on the exercise offered to the children. The lesson involves an individual classroom activity where children use different kinds of building blocks on a large table to build whatever they like. In the video by AvanceNational (2013), the lesson begins by children engaging in different activities under the supervision of their teacher. They have been provided with different materials such as playdough, building blocks, and toys and allowed to play with them as they wish. The children play in small groups using the materials provided and the teacher asks guiding questions on some of the concepts they could learn from the experiments. The video by Fairfax Fixtures (2017) begins with the teacher asking open-guided questions to encourage the students to think about baking. Using a picture book as a guide, the teacher introduces the concepts of baking and later offers the children the opportunity to practice using playdough. The different approaches of teaching STEM shown in the videos shows that children can be creative, engage in teamwork, and develop problem-solving skills from an early age. By incorporating STEM curriculum, teachers can foster ingenuity and creativity by allowing children to explore their environment and learn using resources available in the classroom. STEM allows teachers to provide children with resources and encourage them to connect the concepts taught in the classroom with prior knowledge about their world. In particular, I found the video by Drew (2015) useful in showing how teachers enforce creativity among children using the STEM curriculum. The teacher provides the students with blocks of different sizes and shapes and asks them to make anything that comes to mind without talking to their peers. As the parents observe, the children use the blocks to create different structures and later tell the class what they have built. One student from the Drew (2015) video makes a homeless shelter with sitting places and locations where the hungry people can get free food (TIME STAMP 9.57). It is interesting how the children can be provided with the same materials and be allowed to observe what their peers are making and yet have different ideas....