The Maker Movement, the Modeling Movement and the general thrust away from silos to Inter-Disciplinary approaches are all features of the increasing emphasis on STEM education at independent schools. With a significant focus on girls participation in STEM, this has been a further spur to the cause.

The Maker movement is slowly starting to integrate into regular classes and be used by teachers in their classes programatically but it is still early days and a lot of window-dressing is still going on. We are seeing many Science courses start to adapt to the modeling ethos in a way to get deeper understanding of complex and inter-connected scientific concepts. With Computer Science Departments coming into their own in many schools outside the Technology umbrella, there has also been an intersection between Entrepreneurship programs and STEM programs. A school without a robotics program is increasingly rare.

You will see from some of the videos below that there is real creativity being shown in some schools who are developing their programs.

View OESIS-XP Recording: Life Sciences with Coding & Simulation; Cindy Beals, Learning Designer at American International School (HK) and formerly at Windward School (CA)

View OESIS-XP Recording: Real World Science & Design Thinking 6-8 with Kaitlin Lester, 6th Grade Dean at Westside Neighborhood School (CA)

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Source: OESIS 2017 Learning Innovation Report of 254 Independent Schools

 
These two charts from our recent research show the increasing emphasis on STEM  and PBL in independent schools.

Source: OESIS 2017 Learning Innovation Report of 254 Independent Schools

View OESIS-XP Recording: Flavoring Computer Science for Art, Music, Science & Humanities with David Nassar, Computer Science Chair at Winchester Thurston (PA)

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