Juliana Texley - Teaching STEM Literacy: A Constructivist Approach for Ages 3 to 8

Published by Redleaf Press

10 Yorkton Court

St. Paul, MN 55117

www.redleafpress.org

2018 by Juliana Texley and Ruth M. Ruud

All rights reserved. Unless otherwise noted on a specific page, no portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or capturing on any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a critical article or review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper, or electronically transmitted on radio, television, or the Internet.

First edition 2018

Cover design by Erin Kirk New

Cover image by arrow-stock.adobe.com

Interior design by Ryan Scheife, Mayfly Design

Typeset in the Whitman and Gotham typefaces

Interior illustrations by Lauren Cooper

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Texley, Juliana, author. | Ruud, Ruth M., author.

Title: Teaching STEM literacy: a constructivist approach for ages 3 to 8 / Juliana Texley, Ruth M. Ruud.

Description: First edition. | St. Paul, MN: Redleaf Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017011980 (print) | LCCN 2017023060 (ebook) | ISBN 9781605545639 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: ScienceStudy and teaching (Early childhood)United States. | ScienceStudy and teaching (Early childhood)MethodologyUnited States. | BISAC: EDUCATION / Teaching Methods & Materials / Science & Technology. | EDUCATION / Preschool & Kindergarten. | EDUCATION / Curricula. | EDUCATION / Teaching Methods & Materials / Mathematics.

Classification: LCC LB1585.3 (ebook) | LCC LB1585.3 .T483 2017 (print) | DDC 372.35/044dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017011980

Dedication

This book is dedicated to the thousands of teachers who have inspired and encouraged our workwho work with creativity, energy, and empathy to bring all children to their personal best. In the past few years, we have had the pleasure of collaborating with many talented educators, who have generously shared their insights and practical tips with us.

Thanks also to our husbands, who have helped us as weve worked with these educators. We have traveled the United States and the world, and theyve always been alongside us, supporting science education in their own ways.

And, of course, we dedicate this book to children everywhere who are empowered by their STEM adventures. These explorers are our future. May their endless questions keep us young!

Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the following people for their contributions to this book:

Peggy Ashbrook, whose The Early Years column and liaison work with the National Association for the Education of Young Children assists National Science Teachers Association members.

Vicki Cobb and all the other authors who share their muses with us.

Alicia Conerly and Kristin Poindexter for reviews, photos, and inspiration.

Suzanne Flynn, coordinator of NSTA Recommends, for great trade book suggestions.

Linda Froschauer, who has guided NSTAs Science and Children to include rich resources for early childhood teachers.

Carrie Launius, who helped NSTA redefine STEM literature.

Page Keeley, whose expertise on formative assessment is known across the United States.

Christine Royce, who is a true guide in the choosing and using of trade books.

Starting with STEM

Children are born curious. They are scientists and engineers from the first time they reach out to explore their world. As they grow, they ask many questions each day about the world around them. This is how children build confidence, capacity, and mental habits that will enable them to conquer the challenges of their futures and ours.

As early childhood educators and caregivers discuss education today, they often use the acronym STEM to refer to an integrated approach to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. STEM is more than a list of content, concepts, and skills. Its a holistic approach to educational experiences. STEM practices provide pathways to discovery from babyhood through adulthood. But as you will see from the discussions that follow, even the acronym STEM can be limiting. It may lead teachers and caregivers to create artificial lines between ways of knowing. We need to remember that discovery also involves reading, communicating, social skills and studies, music, and the arts. Discovery seldom falls into any single category.

Early investigations begin in very personal ways. In the language of educators, learners observe phenomena. Thats a term that simply means anything that catches their interest! Phenomena spark questions, and questions lead to investigations. At the early childhood level, STEM practices like observing, questioning, modeling, and communicating are purposeful play. As children build confidence, they use these practices to find personally meaningful solutions to the problems they encounter. They design experiments, collect information, test and retest, and communicate what theyve found. We adults can analyze these activities all we want. But to young children, they are simply natural behaviors with significant benefits to their habits of mind and their sense of competence.

A Basis in Research

Much of what we do in STEM education is built on the seminal work of twentieth-century researchers. In the 1930s, American psychologist and educational reformer John Dewey developed an instructional model based on a philosophy he called the complete act of thought. He wrote that to begin a sound educational experience, students must sense something that perplexes them and then act on it. Three decades later, Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget explored cognitive development in children. He emphasized the importance of physical experiences in learning, from a childs earliest years. From the 1960s onward, educators moved from a pedagogy based on direct instruction (teaching things) to constructivism (creating learning environments that let children examine their own preconceptions and construct their own knowledge, yielding far more meaningful and lasting ideas than children acquire by simply being told things).

Constructivism is a term that might seem complex and mysterious to those who are not involved in education research. But once you know what it means, the concept is both simple to understand and easy to identify. In the 1970s, researchers tried to determine what successful programs and methods had in common. The researchers found that the common element was not what happened in the classroom but what the teachers and caregivers believed about learning. If the adults thought they were the providers of information, they were not successful. If they believed that children needed to build ideas on their own, magic happened. This book is built on that paradigm. Even though it outlines a foundation of core ideas, the path to those ideas is always through the explorations of the learner.

In the 1980s, education researcher Rodger Bybee and his associates at the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study developed an instructional model called the 5Es. Since then, this framework has become the most familiar sequence for planning lessons with a constructivist approach. The 5E framework involves the following phases:

engagement

exploration

explanation