Book Review: An Educator's Guide to STEAM

Submitted By:

Kara Grant 

Springwell School 

Title: An Educator’s Guide to STEAM 

Author: Cassie F. Quigley and Danielle Herro 

Our school is well on our way to incorporating more STEAM learning options for our students. I felt at a loss and was unsure where to even begin! Other than constantly scrolling various websites for ideas, activities, and ways to link the ideas I had to my outcomes and curriculum I decided to begin my hunt for the perfect book to help me figure this all out! Which led me to my purchase of “An Educator’s Guide to STEAM.” Although this book was not completely what I expected it really enlightened a new way of teaching for me! This book did not focus on the hands-on activities which I have learned to be STEAM activities, this book focuses on teaching in a STEAM way; meaning that the focus is on making and teaching lessons in a problem-based, real-world connections kind of way. The lessons are organized to involve each STEAM component (inter-curricular).

This book provides multiple examples of how other teachers use STEAM in their classroom, (often for research and problem-solving tasks/projects) and it highlights how they incorporate technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics to a science-based outcome. This book emphasizes the importance of keeping tasks in a problem-solving manner, incorporating student choice, allowing for multiple solutions, using technology, and reminding us how important teacher facilitation is. There is also a section on STEAM assessment. If you are looking for ways to incorporate hands-on activities into your lessons to deepen the learning of your students this is not the book for you, but if you want ideas on how to teach the STEAM way, then this is definitely going to open up some new ideas and add to your daily teachings.