Shattering traditional barriers to solve real-world challenges
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At Shanghai American School, we are committed to helping students build their futures by providing them with broad, deep educational preparation.
The STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) movement emerged in the United States to provide students with high-level skills in these areas to compete and succeed globally. Even more fundamentally, STEM signals a shift in the way these subjects are taught, focusing on problem solving, critical thinking and drawing interdisciplinary connections to solve real-world problems.
Now, educational thinkers are realizing that STEM learning is incomplete without an “A” … which stands for Arts. STEAM, an initiative championed by the preeminent Rhode Island School of Design, encourages the integration of art and design into discussions about STEM learning. At SAS we agree. The creative, critical and socio-emotional skills that students develop in the arts are of vital importance. In addition, the problem-solving and entrepreneurial dispositions posed in design challenges help cultivate a mindset for innovation.
SAS learning emphasizes such key competencies as collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, cross-cultural competence and clear communication. We call this “Project Now,” our commitment to provide excellent education to every student, every day. We work to support deep, real-life learning for our students each and every day.
Our students will undoubtedly need to draw on broad, varied expertise themselves in their working lives. We must integrate teaching and learning among the disciplines so that students explore and learn in a project-based way, applying and synthesizing knowledge from traditionally discrete subjects. STEAM learning helps them do this. STEAM also challenges us to break down the notion of learning inside and outside of the classroom.
Our students are curious about the world; they pose questions and problems gleaned from real life experiences, and conversely, classroom learning can and should be transferred to their experiences beyond school walls. SAS teachers work to identify opportunities and actualize programs for students to solve authentic challenges, and they also emphasize the importance of service. In this way, our students come to see themselves as actors in their communities, capable of using their knowledge and skills to make a difference.
Educational spaces also need to be refined and reshaped to invite deeper investigations. Our traditional notion of a classroom no longer suffices. At times, open class spaces with flexible furniture and access to design, science and arts tools facilitate project-based, collaborative, interdisciplinary work.
We have focused funding for “Spaces for DREAMS” (our own acronym: Design, Research, Engineering, Arts, Math and Science) across both SAS campuses. In this way, we can provide the foundation for students to do the most powerful learning possible.
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