Putting it All Together: STEAM + PBL

Two big ideas in education today: STEAM and PBL. STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math and PBL stands for Project-Based Learning. So, how can these two ideas work together? Andrew Miller states in his article, PBL and STEAM Education: A Natural Fit, “With a push for deeper learning, teaching and assessment of 21st-century skills, both PBL and STEAM help schools target rigorous learning and problem solving.” He gives some suggestions on how they can work together:

• [Move] Design Challenges to Authentic Problems - Take a classroom design challenge that meets the STEAM goals and find a way to relate it to something the students know.
• 21st Century Skills - The 4Cs - creativity, collaboration, critical thinking, and communication. These skills most common to PBL are a natural fit for STEAM as well.
• Integrated Disciplines - Marrying STEAM and PBL allow educators to fill gaps and capitalize on each philosophy's strength.

Charles R. Drew Charter School in Atlanta is making this a reality. The charter school is a STEAM-focused school and teachers are using PBL to make the learning authentic to the students.

Here’s how these teachers and students are working to make this initiative successful:

• Getting Started With Planning - Come up with one driving topic for each grade level that will be the focus of each quarter.
• Identifying Standards and What Students Need to Know - Look at state and national standards and identify how they can be addressed through your topic.
• Creating the Driving Question - Inform the question based on the standards, real-world application, and with the end in mind.
• Providing an Authentic Audience - Help students connect with their audience and relate to the problem.
• Making the Project Authentic - Connect the driving question to a local event or problem that impacts their students and their community and let them work towards a solution.
• Sustaining Inquiry - Connect your content standards to the project.
• Encouraging Student Choice and Voice - Let students come up a solution to the problem and determine the best way to present it.

Students at Charles R. Drew Charter School are interested in what's happening in the world and engaged in their own learning. The integrated approach of STEAM and PBL allow them to take ownership of their education and see how they'll apply it later in life.

Pepper Professional Development Courses and the Resource Library can help you create a more engaged and active classroom that includes STEAM learning concepts and can help with a Project Based Learning approach to instructional delivery. We’re adding new courses and resources regularly, so be sure to check them out.

Project-Based Learning and the Common Core!

Many educators already have made a shift in the direction of Project-Based Learning (PBL) in recent years as research has shown just how effective it can be in broadening and deepening students' knowledge-base and in helping students develop connections between concepts and applications, and in improving their communication skills.

You may be wondering, though, just how project-based learning might intersect with the Common Core State Standards, and what resources might be out there to help educators ensure that their project-based learning strategies are aligned with CCSS.

This blog post from Edutopia.org, is a great place to start! In this post, "The Role of PBL in Making the Shift to Common Core," Sara Hallermann and John Larmer present six big ideas that help educators understand exactly how PBL and Common Core go hand-in-hand. The takeaway, as they explain, is that "Common Core has embedded within it some Big Ideas that shift the role of teachers to curriculum designers and managers of an inquiry process." PBL puts that inquiry process front-and-center, and encourages students to take ownership of what they're learning about.

For a more in-depth look at the connections between Common Core and PBL, you can check out this FREE PBL WEBINAR from ASCD.org. Led by Andrew Miller, the webinar explores the essential elements of PBL, and the best ways of ensuring that PBL units are aligned to Common Core. Be sure to check out the supporting resources, handouts, and slides!