Educators constantly collect student data, use a variety of tests, and rubrics to measure student learning. Educators often teach throughout their entire career in a comfortable format or singular style. This Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math “ (S.T.E.A.M.)” unit is designed for educators to evaluate, reconsider, or elevate their already “tried and true” teaching methods by either editing their own teaching styles, or editing how student assessment is examined. This unit is designed to motivate teachers away from the lecturer, Socratic teaching methods towards implementing more demonstrator methodologies, embracing the delegator, project-based learning, and place-based learning. In this S.T.E.A.M. unit students are presented with a variety of directions for them to gain knowledge in or find their own self-guided academic direction touching on anti-eugenics principles. This is inquiry based S.T.E.A.M. unit gives students the power or control in their learning. This flipped classroom style reverses the traditional approaches allows students time to do research, have peer discussions, and gain self-confidence or self-empowerment with their learning. I am aspiring that this unit allows teachers to consider varied differentiated instruction models and evolve their evaluation assessment systems.
Brains are often described as being “plastic” meaning that they change their form in response to experiences and learning. Teaching styles “may also” impact brains growth and retention. In the book Imbeciles written by Adam Cohen it was noted “The Binet-Simon was presented as measuring innate intelligence, but many of its questions required specific knowledge or had a class or cultural biases.” The truth is all brains are a very complex system, and any one standard or measure cannot be even an accurate model to gauge authentic learning and teaching.
In this S.T.E.A.M. unit students will select an area of interest touching on topics: brain, MRI, assessments, IQ, data, classifying, sorting, measuring, breeding, eugenics, genes, hereditary, and other related topics. Students might select diseases or issues relevant to brain. Students may wish to better understand how the brain works, or parts of the brain, tools or devices to gain information on the brain.
Data can be used for research to prove any type of science theory. Data collecting can be used to make connections for determining psychology terms, measurement, or tools used to measure IQ, or any area the students wish to research connecting to the era of eugenics or anti-eugenics.
Students can question: Are standardized tests able to give any accurate snap shots to classroom learning? What is gene editing? Did a time in history discriminate against humans who did not meet certain standards? Are genes or DNA connected to the brain or mental health, race, or reproduction? How does math support science or art? What is an algorithms artist? What does “Art and Brains” mean? After students view the teacher’s google slideshow they will share and then pick their chosen area to research, design a google slideshow, create a work of visual art to represent their chosen topic, embed a photograph of their visual art creation into the google slide show, use statistics to support their topic, and then perform or present selected topic to the class in a mini TEDx talk preferably in Harkness table round setting style.
“We can never discover everything about the human brain because if it was simple enough to understand, we would be too simple to try.” I feel this quote is spot on and I appreciated reading the book Simply The Brain written by DK. Looking at both above quotes I want educators to consider the kaleidoscope of S.T.E.A.M. layers that exist and allow students to question the tools used, needed, or invented connecting with IQ, Brain, Data, Sorting, Classifying of their own choice.
There are many “right” ways for students to tackle this open-ended assignment. I want educators both with their own grading style as well as their own teaching style to reflect upon the countless ways students can both engage in learning and to rethink their own measuring or evaluating of student success or academic growth and achievements. This S.T.E.A.M. unit allows students to excel by students having the ability to highlight an academic area that they feel most interested in. Students can flaunt their strong technological google slideshow skills, creative visual arts, design engineering skills, or math skills when giving the statistics to how many people have been deemed their topic in the U.S.A. Students will use technology entertainment by design model when public speaking to their fellow classmates preferably in harness table round style to “hook” classmates. I want students to embrace difference, variety, autonomy, self-governance, self-discipline, and self-determination, rather than simply listening and restating information just for the better grade that ultimately may limit student desired discoveries.
The teacher's google slideshow is designed to facilitate student research directions. Next, students will use their hands to design their own google slideshow and then with creativity build either a 2D or 3D art creation that depicts the direction of their topic. Both hands-on activities will deepen or integrate the meaning for this newly obtained information. Responsible internet decision making skills will be gained. Some practice and hopefully confidence in public speaking will be possible. Students will increase their own active listening skills as well as self-control skills when respecting other student ideas during class oral presentations. I encourage educators to excessively value this ethical behavior, of active respectful listening. In other words giving students respect as a more valuable component when assessing or grading. I encourage educators when grading the students to pause, maybe reset, to reflect, remember the power or value of humanity, and teaching integrity for all. The value of being a respectful audience member is as important as creating a fabulous aesthetically pleasing google slideshow. In the book Human Genetics it states “Although the science of human genetics is difficult for most to understand, the social implications of its use impact all humanity.” The same is true in regard to respect when actively listening to student presentations.
This unit is developed to help middle school students gain independent self-motivation, impulse control, self-discipline, time management, organizational skills, peer interactions, peer respect, peer communications skills, teamwork, and create a community collective group of peer thinking. On the surface this unit may seem to be solely about S.T.E.A.M. investigations however, this unit is empowering students to thrive while they acquire relevant information on topics they have selected. Students will use the art elements, principles, and art supplies to depict their topic. Students will see other artists who created artwork that were moved by science, data, math, history, current events, and more.
I want students to see how science impacts the arts. Evolutionary geneticist Richard Lewontin, for example believes that “a large fraction of human beings will be the victims of the omissions and commissions of science because they lack the material wealth and social power to control their own lives.” Molecular biologist Lee Silver agrees, maintaining that this will lead to a society of genetic haves and have-nots. “That’s my fear about genetic engineering: it is so powerful, it is so good, it will only be available to those who have money.” This quote raised many questions for me. It reminded me of another idea by author Michael J. Sandel’s in the book, The Case against Perfection “- In caring for the health of their children, parents do not cast themselves as designers or convert their children into products of their will or instruments of their ambition. The same can not be said of parents who pay large sums to select the sex of their child (for nonmedical reasons) or who aspire to bioengineer their child’s intellectual endowments or athletic prowess. Like all enhancement blurs at the edges. (What about orthodontics, for example, or growth hormone for very short kids?) But this does not obscure the reason the distinction matters: parents bent on enhancing their children are more likely to overreach, to express and entrench attitudes at odds with the norm of unconditional love.”
In this S.T.E.A.M. unit students can view the teacher google slideshow, peer reflect with classmates, and try to seek a direction or desire in researching. In the disturbing book, A Century of Eugenics in America from the Indiana Experiment to the Human Genome Era, in chapter ten it states ideas on screening for non-treatable disorders. “Arguments for considering broader benefits from the early diagnosis that only newborn screening can provide knowledge on which to base reproductive decision making years before a disease would be diagnosed for the affected child.”
In the case of my cousin with S.M.A who died in 2002 at four months and eleven days old could this prescreening have prevented anything? In a case in 2005 the Nebraska Supreme Court rejected newborn screening for religious grounds. When reading the same book, I stumbled upon IVF and PGD which would be protected under the constitutional right to reproductive freedom. Students are internally motivated to gain new information when it is directly connected to either themselves, their own family, or their passions. I hope this S.T.E.A.M. unit motivates students to want to become lifelong learners.
This unit will hopefully deepen or enrich any previous Art unit taught due to the multi-content layering S.T.E.A.M. involvement. The goal of this unit is also to allow academic and artistic independence as well as students utilize previous art skills taught during this school year and independently students can apply them. Unless this is for high school students then the skills are from previous years obtained. Having students take control of their own learning directions by their own inspirations make take learning to a more concrete place of gaining “forever knowledge.” I am hoping this S.T.E.A.M. unit will be an introspective experience that students become deeper critical thinkers, strong observers of how complex systems are around us always, and question systems in place.
Students will review some technology “rules” when searching the internet. I want to remind students that they could accidentally stumble upon inappropriate or “off” topic information and that students are not to be distracted. Students are to redirect themselves. Students are to log out and redirect back to appropriate “on” topic territories. Students need to be reminded of technology expectations using school state funded computer expectations.
To inspire art creations, a list of artists is embedded in the teacher google slideshow. Artists are associated with the intersection of science. math data, and art. In case students wish to do a recreation or “in the manner of” an artist style say: Pavel Piskarev, Golan Levin, David McCandless, Nathalie Miebach, Greg Dunn, Todd Siler, Beatie Wolfe, Jer Thorp, M.C. Escher, Da Vinci, students can pick from the list provided.
I want students to use Math as a way of guiding or stating how the area or topic the student selected mathematically impacts our world. I want students to use statistics or graphs to try and show how their selected topic looks in the world of mathematics data, sorting, and classifying. I want students to gain knowledge of visual artists that create art from or inspired by the intersections of other academic domains. I want students to consider art and maybe a genetic enhancement to create art from.
