Our Global STEAM Agenda
BUILDING 21st-CENTURY SKILLS FOR A BETTER FUTURE
At the heart of our Globeducate vision — we prepare students to be global citizens who can shape the world — lies our commitment to equipping students with the skills and knowledge necessary to make their own impact on the future. Science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics play a crucial part in every young Globeducate student´s learning journey. Through a “hands-on, minds-on” approach to learning and teaching, students acquire the tools and critical thinking skills to approaching problems.
What does this look like in our schools?
- Collaborative learning enables hands-on play, sparking curiosity and creativity in our youngest students.
- Real-life curriculum-aligned projects to develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
- Advanced learning opportunities for older students through coding and robotics.
- Mentoring challenges for senior students, working with younger students on coding and robotics projects.
How we integrate STEAM into curricula
By integrating our Globeducate STEAM agenda across our school curricula and programmes, and embedding creativity in all science, technology, engineering, arts and maths lessons and activities, students learn how to make connections, how to organise their ideas, how to be creative, how to make decisions and how to work together across different disciplines. Importantly, they learn the ability to transfer what they learn in one curriculum area to others, and to real-life situations.
STEAM education immerses students and teachers in inquiry, dialogue, problem-solving and experiential learning that deepens understanding across their whole school learning; young minds make connections more easily between content areas that were previously taught individually. Our progressive STEAM agenda empowers students to identify and tackle real-world problems with increasing engagement, creativity, collaboration and connections to diverse areas.
Making tangible links between these five core areas — science, technology, engineering, arts and maths — becomes a natural part of teaching and learning through a carefully designed STEAM programme. Students develop creative and critical thinking skills in addition to logical thought processes, and teachers in Globeducate schools collaborate across the world through our STEAM agenda. Through online and in-person learning communities, teachers share best practice on how students best acquire the competencies that are critical to solving the complex and ever-evolving needs facing our future workforces. The result of this approach to STEAM education is empowered, motivated and engaged students who can make connections between disciplines and know how to transfer knowledge to new situations or challenges.
Transformational learning with LEGO® Education and robotics
Globeducate is working with LEGO® Education, putting our STEAM provision firmly on the map within our schools. Investment in the latest product for upper primary and middle school students has seen us launch SPIKE™ Prime, underpinning new programmes in transformational learning through play.
Bringing robotics and coding into our classrooms with LEGO® Education resources and teacher training creates opportunities for students to think critically and creatively, to problem solve and to communicate effectively with others. Working with the Head of Education Impact at LEGO® Education, 25 of our schools are already integrating existing STEAM programmes with new technologies and cutting-edge resources.
Our 2020 pilot project with hands-on robotics inspired 25 schools to join in
Simon Huntridge, Head of Design and Technology at Nobel British International School Algarve talks about the success of the LEGO® Education Spike™ Prime pilot project.
Our Globeducate STEAM agenda blends very well with the IB Learner Profile. Students not only learn tools, skills and knowledge, they develop a “try again” mindset and learn how to be flexible. Having a STEAM agenda is about being an enriched school with an enriched curriculum platform, through which students can take an approach to thinking that is critical and creative. At ICS Milan, we talk about teachers modelling this approach to thinking, working together with students to guide them in the relevance of what they are doing, and being enablers rather than deliverers of learning outcomes. It´s important to see STEM as a discipline but STEAM as a holistic agenda where each component has equal currency –
that´s why our STEAM agenda encompasses three key pillars: STEM, art and design and performing arts.”Antonia Giovanazzi, Executive Principle, ICS Milan