From July 27th to 31st, 2015, the one-week STEM 2015 International Summer School was successfully held by Faculty of Education (FOE), Beijing Normal University. The teachers of the summer school were from the Center for STEM Innovative Instruction at the School of Educational Technology of BNU, and Tufts University, Tennessee University and Columbia University from the U.S. The participants were undergraduates and graduates from BNU and other universities and enterprises staff who work in the field of education. Theoretical instruction, design links and practical activities were applied in the curriculum, which integrated STEM, the STEM instructional cases in the U.S and the STEM application in K1-12 education such as Little Bits, Arduino and Lego EV3. All participants learnt in groups.
On the morning of July 27th, the STEM international summer school began. Associate Professor Feng-Kuang Chiang hosted the opening ceremony. Vice Dean ShengquanYu delivered the opening remark. Prof. Yu analyzed the background of STEM Education, introduced the STEM education characteristics, emphasized the main points of STEM education interdisciplinary integration mode, and put forward by using subject knowledge map to plan the project design generally so as to achieve the balanced coverage of the interdisciplinary knowledge.
Vice Dean Shengquan Yu delivered the opening remark.
Associate Prof. Feng-Kuang Chiang introduced the STEM 2015 international summer school
The theoretical teaching was rich in content and innovative in teaching forms. After the professors introduced the STEM theory and analyzed the STEM cases, they led sorts of activities to let participants experience the STEM education idea of “learning by doing”, which aroused active interaction, heated discussion and sharing of ideas between the teachers and the students. The classroom atmosphere was very lively.
Associate Prof. Feng-Kuang Chiang introduced the STEM curriculum integration in K1-12.
Prof. Chris from Tennessee University interacted with students.
Prof. Darryl from Tufts University shared the STEM educational cases in the U.S.
Associate Prof. Qian Fu instructed students to learn Arduino.
Dr.Lan introduced Maker and Little bits application in education.
Graduates from Tufts University introduced some interesting activities they have designed, such as Silly Walk, Novel Engineering, Squishy Circuit and so on. The BNU students actively interacted with the International students and got to know the technology that could be used in STEM education.
Tufts team introduced the novel engineering.
Tufts team instructed the student’s activities.
Group activity
In the end, the participants were divided into seven groups and were instructed to devise work collaboratively in groups. Diverse and creative work was designed. There were 3-dimension pin balls in game teaching, earthquake monitoring, garbage classifiers, energy-saving fan, exploration of Jupiter, to name just a few. In addition, the participants also designed a complete set of STEM course on the basis of the course. Judging from students’ work and their Q&A performance, the professors and Tufts’ graduates selected the first, second and third prizes from the seven groups.
Students’ works
All groups received comments and suggestions from the judges, and learned from their own experience in a welcoming and supporting atmosphere. Both the teachers and students benefited from the active interaction.
Students answered the judge’s questions.
Award Ceremony
Although the STEM 2015 International Summer School was only one week, the participants not only learnt theoretical knowledge of STEM education but also expanded their horizon and better understand the technology in the field of STEM through the interesting activities. Meanwhile, participants also harvest the friendship as well. Participants said that time was too short and they looked forward to next year's participation!
Group Photo of STEM 2015 International Summer School