Crossroads News
Students Use Technology as a Tool
New STEAM Labs facilitate multidisciplinary projects.
Over the summer, the former technology hubs of the Elementary and Middle School campuses were transformed into STEAM Labs. In both rooms, a central open space was created for students to tackle projects that use some combination of STEAM: science, technology, engineering, arts and math.
The new use of these spaces reflects a larger transformation in both divisions to teach technology not as a separate skill, but as a tool to explore a variety of different subjects. The projects grow in complexity from grade to grade, building upon the lessons of the previous year.
“We’ve created a fluid program between divisions so that the concepts that have been taught in the Elementary School are advanced in the Middle School,” says Elementary School Technology Specialist Joy Watt. “We’re moving students from being consumers to being makers and inventors.”
Kindergarten and first-grade students visit the STEAM Lab every week, while second- through fifth-graders work intensively in the STEAM Lab during “tech weeks,” developing projects related to literature, social studies or science.
In the Middle School, seventh- and eighth-graders bring their own laptops to school, while sixth-graders participate in a weekly technology course in the STEAM Lab that leverages the Design Thinking Process. Middle School Technology Coordinator Dori Friedman creates projects that complement what students are learning in other classes through an innovative, hands-on curriculum. For example, students learning about medieval Europe in Core this fall will visit the STEAM Lab to create a large-scale Viking ship using a 3-D printing pen. During the twice-weekly Tinkering Options Class, students receive guiding questions and materials to complete a variety of projects that allow them to tinker, make and innovate.
