Play-based STEAM Experiences for Young Children: Integrating Art, Engineering, and Technology will help you to create cooperative, arts-based engineering and technology lessons for young learners.
Early childhood educators have important roles in planning, playful early arts-rich STEM experiences that will engage all children. This course shares examples of integrated arts, technology, and engineering learning experiences where early childhood educators can act as both a guide and facilitator throughout the planning, implementation and assessment of playful STEAM experiences.
This course will support your development of playful STEAM experiences in the classroom by helping you to:
• Understand the links between play, technology, engineering, and the arts. • Plan cooperative, playful STEAM lessons that will engage all children in your classroom as they work collaboratively. • Understand how to support key ideas in STEAM learning– questioning, exploration, creation/construction, test/re-test, revise/rebuild, and communication– as a regular part of block and loose parts play in the classroom • Implement classroom experiences that support children’s engagement with art, technology, and engineering in everyday experiences using accessible and safe materials • Observe and recognize children’s current interests and understandings of STEAM concepts during their play and explorations in order to support and extend their learning
Angela Eckhoff is an Associate Professor of Teaching and Learning and Director of the Virginia Early Childhood Policy Center at Old Dominion University in Virginia. She holds a dual PhD from the University of Colorado – Boulder in Educational Psychology and Cognitive Science. She is a coeditor of the Full STEAM Ahead column for Teaching Young Children from the National Association for the Education of Young Children. Dr. Eckhoff studies the role of creativity in child development and learning, arts-based research and pedagogical practices, and early STEAM learning in both classroom and museum settings. She is the author of Provoking Curiosity: Student-Led STEAM Learning for Pre-K to Third Grade and the Creative Investigations in Early STEAM book series from Gryphon House Publishers.
