STEAM Education with Play
Learning with playing is an effective method in making kids understand the subject and build confidence in life. ATLAB promotes holistic learning in UAE through effective partnership with collaborators.
The LEGO Education has been studying incorporating play into the study methodology to make learning more interesting for students. ATLAB, one of the leading educational tool providers in UAE have been striving to teach STEAM subjects that will be increasingly important as the pace of innovation grows and the job market evolves.
Emphasis on the content of STEAM subjects has led to quantifiable academic achievements in different global educational scenarios. STEM education is creating values for students beyond quantifiable parameters by employing holistic skills—social, emotional, physical and creative skills—that are essential for creating lifelong learners.
How Play helps Holistic development
Learning through play develops holistic skills in the early schooling period. Despite the clear advantage of implementing play in learn mode, educators are still skeptical regarding the same. Educational researchers studied that learning through play, supports the development of early literacy and numeracy skills in the most understandable manner, while also cultivating children’s social, emotional, physical, and creative skills.
The method is effective for all age group students despite the fact that there has been little progress in understanding the benefit of holistic learning in the later part of studies. A holistic approach is ideal mostly for pre-school times. Lego, a leading educational service provider, points out that there is no mention of “play” or “play-based learning” for children beyond eight years old.
Five essential characteristics of learning through play
Lego Foundation has been collaborating with various universities in implementing learning with play. These include,
When students can relate theories to real-life experiences, they find the subject relevant. Integrated approaches are meaningful when they are designed to include relevant and engaging tasks, inquiry questions, and problems or projects that are self-sustaining and thought provoking, compelling learners to find out more.
Holistic learning mostly deals with developing interpersonal as well as social skills in students. When learning happens in a group doing an experiment or activity, it can help them build social networks and dissolve barriers between individuals, which are common in traditional learning-teaching methods.
Active learning occurs when learners are deeply immersed, rely on and support other learners, and teachers guide learners to formulate understandings and develop new skills. This is solely attained by prompting them to question and reach for rational as well as logical answers. Engaged learners demonstrate motivation and commitment towards their learning, often extending themselves beyond set goals and expectations.
When learners have the opportunity to explore new concepts by trial and error method. When learners share their ideas with each other, revise, and recalibrate their thinking based on testing, trying out possibilities and revising hypotheses. Teachers encourage iteration through guiding learners with targeted, encouraging questions, hints and modelling.
When learning is curious, an enjoyable process with positive peer and teacher interaction gives learning new perspectives. This is catalyzed by interest and motivation with building confidence in students to try new experiments, personally relating to the content of their learning, and feeling able and confident about their learning.
5 skills for holistic child development
Learning through play helps children develop a deeper understanding and a broader set of skills that they will need to succeed in future education and careers. The LEGO Dubai has identified them as follows,
Cognitive skills – being able to concentrate, problem-solve and think flexibly by learning to tackle complex tasks and build effective strategies to identify solutions.
Emotional skills – being able to understand, manage and express emotions by building self-awareness and handling impulses, as well as staying motivated and confident in the face of difficulties.
Physical skills – being physically active, understanding movement and space through practicing sensory-motor skills, developing spatial understanding, and nurturing an active and healthy body.
Social skills – being able to collaborate, communicate and understand other people’s perspectives through sharing ideas, negotiating rules and building empathy.
Creative skills – being able to come up with ideas and express and transform them into reality by creating associations, symbolizing and representing ideas, and providing meaningful experiences for others.
ATLAB promotes Holistic learning in the UAE, which helps in building the overall personality of an individual from an early schooling period. Recognized as one of the leading STEM education Dubai providers, ATLAB showcases a wide array of educational tools and services that are essential for the new-age educational system
