Summer brings a well-deserved break for teachers to relax and reset before the next group of students enters their new classrooms. Oftentimes, the summer has an unfortunate side effect on student development. Months spent away from a classroom setting means that students are likely not reinforcing their learning from the previous year.

One of the biggest educational challenges for K-8 STEAM education is that there aren’t many guidelines or models for teachers to follow while integrating a STEAM curriculum. Even as more and more districts adopt bold STEAM vision statements, the STEAM disciplines are still often taught in silos – and rarely do they intersect.

Summer is here! With the warmer weather and longer days, educators get a long break from classroom instruction. This is a great time to work on professional development! In this article, we have compiled a list of STEAM professional development ideas and resources you can take advantage of this summer.

Chances are, if you have worked in education, you have heard the rising buzz around STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) and STEAM learning. STEM and STEAM are terms that are often used interchangeably to refer to subjects and work involving hard skills in technical areas. There is, however, a significant difference between the two.

STEAM projects provide a unique opportunity to evaluate student understanding and hone your teaching practice. Students’ learning and level of engagement can be impacted by assessment strategies you use before, during, and after project construction. Determining what your students learned, how effectively they worked together, and how they are progressing in your STEAM program are essential steps to master.

Ensuring the lifelong success of students requires schools to invest in building and maintaining a strong STEAM program. To truly reap the rewards of investing in STEAM education, schools must first prioritize and invest in their teachers! A great way to do this is by honoring STEAM educators during Teacher Appreciation Week 2023.

An effective STEAM classroom and the implementation of Project-based Learning depends, among other things, on cognitive and metacognitive skills. Specifically, they are dependent on cognitive and metacognitive abilities for selecting, reading, monitoring, critiquing, and iterating. It is also true that educational researchers argue that metacognition is a central feature in life-long learning in general and the heart of STEAM, and that metacognitive engagement is key for developing deeper conceptual understanding of scientific ideas.