Playdough for Everyone
Playdough is a tactile educational tool that can be used as a way to incorporate creativity and kinesthetic learning into lessons. It is inexpensive and easy to make using available kitchen ingredients (flour, salt, water & oil). Playdough can be used throughout the curriculum for all ages: it can be an effective form of experiential […]
Podcast Series: interdisciplinary learning
Thinking Outside the Sandbox was created in summer 2020 as the result of a collaboration between two graduate students Belén Guillemin and Nashwa Khedr, together with Yvonne Dawydiak, Learning Design Manager, Teacher Education as part of the 2020 Scarfe Sandbox team. The inspiration for the podcast series came about as Belen and Nashwa interviewed Faculty […]
Storytelling for STEM Subjects
Using the art of storytelling to teach STEM subjects. “Maybe stories are just data with soul” – from TED Talk “The Power of Vulnerability” by Brené Brown Storytelling can be an effective method for engaging students with STEM subject areas – and this has been shown to be the case for girls especially (1, 3, 4). […]
Design-Based Learning: STEM and Simple Machines
Watching children play, particularly very young children, we can see they behave scientifically. Children observe and collect. They wonder and deduce, and they’re methodical. They collaborate – sometimes! – and when they’re puzzled, they experiment and make adjustments. At whatever age STEM learning occurs, though, make no mistake: it is real STEM learning, not mere […]
Secondary Science: some possibilities for digital tech integration
One cannot truly experience science without experiencing its technological dimension. As a result, emergent technologies have increasingly shaped students’ experiences with science as well as influenced their relationships with natural/physical world. (Oliveira et al, 2019) This fall, I had the pleasure once again of working with two of our Science Ed instructors, Leslie Johnstone and […]
