5 Approaches That Engage High School Students in STEM Learning

Key points:

Creating engaging STEM learning experiences in high school is essential to sparking curiosity, developing critical skills, and fostering a love of STEM subjects, and potentially encouraging students to pursue STEM careers.

Below are five strategies teachers can adopt to bring STEM to life in their classrooms.

1. Incorporate practical activities and experiments.

Hands-on activities allow students to interact directly with STEM concepts, making learning tangible and memorable. Furthermore, when they make mistakes, they are motivated to try new approaches to testing theories. Teachers can lead activities that allow students to see concepts in action, including simple experiments with household materials to demonstrate principles such as gravity, friction, or chemical reactions. In a unit on electricity, students can create simple circuits with batteries, wires, and light bulbs. In mathematics, measurement and geometry activities, such as building models or plotting data, can turn abstract numbers into something that students can visualize and manipulate.

Teachers can encourage students to make predictions, hypothesize about results, and document results. This process reinforces scientific inquiry and develops critical thinking skills as students see, touch, and analyze real results from their experiments.

2. Use project-based learning to solve real-world problems.

Project-based learning (PBL) encourages students to learn by engaging in meaningful, real-world projects. In STEM learning, PBL is an impactful way to show students how the concepts they learn apply outside of the classroom. For example, in an engineering-focused project, students could design a bridge model to support a specific weight, design roller coasters, or create an eco-friendly building model using sustainable materials.

When students work on projects that address real-world problems, they feel a sense of purpose in their work, fulfilling the desire of many students to pursue careers in which they help people. PBL also encourages collaboration and communication, as many projects are best completed as a team. Teachers can introduce community projects, such as designing solutions to environmental problems in their neighborhood, that not only reinforce STEM concepts but also show students the impact they can have. They can also ask students to compile a list of neighborhood, community, or state challenges they would like to solve, divide them into groups, and address those challenges.

3. Introduce educational technology tools to improve learning.

Integrating educational technology tools is an effective way to capture (and keep) students' attention and improve learning. Apps and programs make it easy for students to explore STEM topics interactively; For example, coding platforms like Scratch or Tynker introduce students to programming through fun, age-appropriate challenges. Virtual labs and simulations allow students to perform experiments that might be difficult or unsafe to perform in a classroom. These virtual simulations are also often linked to real-world problems, giving relevance to classroom lessons.

If available in a school makerspace, 3D printers are great for engaging students because they allow them to design, create, and ideate solutions, turning digital designs into physical objects they can see and touch. Teachers can guide students in designing their own models related to class lessons, from creating geometric shapes in mathematics to building replicas of simple molecules in chemistry. Many students have used 3D printers to solve real-world problems, such as printing prosthetics that are affordable and accessible to those who need them.

4. Foster interdisciplinary connections

STEM education does not exist in a vacuum: many real-world applications overlap with other subjects. Interdisciplinary connections can help students see STEM from new perspectives and understand its relevance. For example, while studying engineering principles, teachers can incorporate art by challenging students to design aesthetically pleasing yet functional structures, combining engineering and design thinking.

STEM storytelling combines language arts with STEM, enhancing students' understanding of scientific impact through a historical or personal lens. Even incorporating history, such as the evolution of technology or major scientific advances, can contextualize STEM subjects in ways that make them relatable and meaningful.

5. Build a culture of curiosity and encourage questioning.

An environment that encourages curiosity and allows students to ask questions and explore concepts that really interest them can significantly improve engagement. Teachers can encourage curiosity by creating a “I Wonder” board where students post questions or topics they would like to explore. Teachers can then incorporate these topics into the curriculum or design small projects based on student queries.

Allowing students to vote on projects or learning topics can boost participation. For example, in a life sciences class, instead of assigning a specific topic, allow students to research and present findings about a plant or animal of their choice. This gives them ownership of their learning and the freedom to follow their natural interests within the framework of the curriculum.

As students progress through middle school, STEM learning should focus on developing curiosity, confidence, and foundational skills that students will carry with them through high school and beyond.

By incorporating hands-on activities, real-world problem solving, educational technology tools, interdisciplinary learning, and a culture of curiosity, teachers can create a dynamic and engaging learning environment. These strategies don't just teach STEM: they empower students, showing them how they can use STEM to understand and shape the world around them. When students see how STEM relates to their lives and interests, they are much more likely to feel motivated and excited to learn.

Laura Ascione is the editorial director of eSchool Media. He graduated from the prestigious Philip Merrill School of Journalism at the University of Maryland.

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