Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow. – Anthony J. D’Angelo
Empowering children through learning as a result of social investment is significant to innovation in the global economic landscape. Building STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) competencies is essential to the development of the knowledge and skills of the workforce for the 21st century.
From my research and that of other experts, I have deduced that the present knowledge economies are rooted in science and technology, interwoven globally, and driven by innovation. In addition, a vital and ground-breaking economy relies immensely on the knowledge and skills of the workers. For the labor force, the advantages of STEM education are relevant in both non-STEM and STEM disciplines. Highly skilled workers are connected to economic growth and development, improvement, and competitiveness in the international marketplace. This 21st century requires skills, information, and the ability to originate. Learning is at the center of garnering skills, and it is essential to the advancement of skills. This is the work we ought to be dwelling upon in all of our schools – empowering our students with the skills necessary to flourish in the 21st century.
No matter the sector of the economy, change is inevitable and there are complexities plus constraints that creep up periodically. We must be flexible and open minded; our educational sector must reflect this also. At the moment, there is a huge prerequisite for the knowledge economy, including inspiring students to acquire critical thinking and problem-solving skills. The necessary skills that have been identified worldwide as being critical for the 21st century are creativity, collaboration, cross-cultural understanding, communication, IT saviness, and the lifelong predisposition to learning. It is therefore imperative that we revise the current pedagogical model to one that infuses “learning by doing” and complex thinking. We have been sounding the bell on this over and over.
Learning should be focused on discovery and application – the content and context. Education should be a journey not a destination – an exciting one at that. Centering lessons on activities and projects bolster children’s conceptual understanding and aids in the connection between what they learn and the real world. This enables scaffolding learning through projects and activities, with the prospect of students working collaboratively to deploy their abilities to solve a problem. Our goal is to have children engaged in hands-on, project based, and problem-based learning opportunities, as early as in the kindergarten.
At our STEM bootcamps, we stress a learning environment defined by discovery and application to empower our children to solve real-world challenges and, in turn, contribute to progress, both locally and globally.
Our goal is to galvanize children to ask questions, make observations, gather information, and design, develop, and test solutions. The beauty of this approach is that it fosters transferable skills that are applicable to all subjects, going beyond STEM. For us, discovery and application are the foundations of learning.
We have seen learning that was trans formative during our bootcamps; students learning to question, explore, discover concepts for themselves, apply the knowledge and ultimately learn. This in turn led them to become bolder about pondering upon real-world challenges and, in turn, contribute to global progress through innovation and achievement.
A robust education such as this prepares our children with the appropriate skills to quickly learn new tasks and adjust to new occupations in the changing global economy.
Let’s create learning environments that encourage and display our 21st century skills; this is what our children deserve. We desire a learning environment that stimulates our children to be creators. In such an environment, our children see the world today and aspire to apply information and skills to improve it. Hands-on, relevant learning, at any level of education enables education to be applied
This our ambition: making learning relevant for all of our children.
Adetola Salau; Educator / Speaker / Author/ Social Entrepreneur / Innovator
She is an Advocate of STEM Education and is Passionate about Education reform. She is an innovative thinker and strives for our society & continent as a whole to reclaim it’s greatness. She runs an educational foundation with the mission to transform education.
E-mail-:Carismalife4U@gmail.com
Facebook-: Carisma4u
Twitter-: @Carisma4u
Website-: www.carisma4u.com
