The leap from being a teacher to become a master!
In the following article, we will reflect on the general context that surrounds the essential skills of a STEM+A MASTER profile.
From a STEM+A approach: what can be some of those skills and competences that today’s teachers must consider and develop?
A wonderful teacher must go beyond just making sure that their students stand out. Education nowadays (and in the future) requires results when it comes to capabilities, competitiveness, and appropriation of emerging technologies. All of which are necessary to address worldwide challenges in different fields and areas.
This is the reason why professors who lead their work towards a higher standard of education, with a higher level of commitment, willingness to serve, an inspiring leadership approach, and skills in change management; are able to make a difference while enlightening new generations. People who can transcend from a numeric grade, or an accomplishment of certain criteria or standards on the traditional curriculum that is based on independent subjects.
The definition of transmedia is a narrative that extends beyond multiple media forms that also plays to the strength of those forms. It may or may not be interactive. This makes it possible to have interactive video game portions of a narrative married to prose-rich novellas combined with smart use of specific social media platforms, all collaborating strategically to tell a compelling story while offering the potential for innovative use of crowdsourcing and audience engagement.
We have the challenge to inspire and strengthen educators who can talk about feeling motivated about teaching, about knowledge, and about creative learning during the day-by-day contact with the students. Teachers who can be conscious about their transforming capacity as counselors of a proper crosswise education, who do not coerce inquiry, and who do not feel threatened by curious students wanting to know more.
“Today’s professors have the possibility of articulating their work with technologies, which clearly have come here to stay, help, and serve in the mediation, orientation, guidance, and enhancement of all the students’ skills and capabilities. However, they cannot replace the humanizing capability, which is essential in the educational process of a whole human being”.
Let’s always keep in mind that a STEM+A master does not just settle in socializing contents linked to science, technology, math or arts. They are also teachers with multidisciplinary and crosswise capabilities who break those traditional barriers in their classes and apply new creative strategies on their pedagogical practices by means of quick methodologies and educational innovation.
On educators’ intercommunications in hybrid classrooms, and each time that there is an interaction, either virtually or in-person, the STEM+A master is delivering knowledge and life lessons, encouraging communication, and supporting collaboration in teamwork. Therefore, it demands the development of transverse skills in educators who humanize technologies and give them meaning so that their students can build critical and argumentative thinking, which derives from a flexible thinking and a systematic vision that intertwines learning with reality.
La colaboración no es una metáfora, sino una realidad que estructura la propuesta pedagógica completa, en todos los niveles, plasmada en clases donde el tiempo de clase está dedicado a resolver tareas complejas a partir del trabajo en equipo.
Los espacios maker (Cobo, 2016; Maggio, 2017) ganan presencia articulando las habilidades de los estudiantes como productores con el favorecimiento de la comprensión en las materias curriculares. Los estudiantes dedican horas a proyectos personales o grupales en los que creen profundamente y que al hacerse públicos adquieren el carácter de obras valoradas por la comunidad.
La problematización de la realidad da lugar a la construcción de soluciones a la manera de expertos, proyectos de largo plazo y de alto impacto, que cambian la vida de las comunidades en modos diversos.
La creación alcanza el arte en todas sus formas y aquello que se construye como fenómeno y obra se constituye en un patrimonio y alcanza a muchos otros a quienes inspira.
El diseño es puesto en juego para producir tecnologías originales en las que se ponen en juego pensamientos complejos en las diferentes etapas del desarrollo. Se trata de escuelas que, en diferentes realidades, con distintas identidades y en condiciones diversas, lograron encarnar en sus propuestas diseños pedagógicos donde las habilidades que se proponen favorecer emergen y se consolidan” (Maggio, 2018).
A STEM+A master promotes the development of BEING and KNOWING in order to transform the KNOWING-HOW-TO-DO-IT of the students to allow them to find a sense of meaning in the activities they complete, to connect knowledge in order to follow an exceptional decision-making process, and to utilize tools, methods and new and articulated technologies to anchor their practices on reality. Following these ideas, a 4.0 Master is likely to be oriented towards applying a STEM+A flexible, transforming, and inspiring path with their students and other teachers.
This is due to the fact that they can find in technologies an ally to upgrade their strategies and make their pedagogical practices reach a higher level and connect with the generation of the 21st century with multidisciplinary approaches. In this sense, new ways of solving and confronting challenges will come up, with a scientific, sustainable, inclusive, ethical, and creative vision.
Written by: Maria Beatriz Castilla G.
Instructional Designer - Consultant in IT Learning and Knowledge Management Strategies
