Please complete the following questions, and then you will work through a series of activities and questions to help you learn about Making and Tinkering with STEM. The book, Making and Tinkering with STEM by Cate Heroman, offers teachers background in STEM education as well as a series of challenges integrating literature and engineering. In this video series, you will have an opportunity to explore the use of making, tinkering and engineering in the classroom. How are making, tinkering and engineering different? How does one lead into the next? The video series will answer those questions along with many others.
The videos, like the book, are organized with information about what is making, tinkering, and engineering and how they are different, how to set up a STEM maker’s space for your students, how to organize materials for easy use and safety, and how to involve families in the STEM experience.
Also included are 6 of the design challenges from the book. Each challenge is introduced with a video of the reading of the book used as the “problem” setting for the engineering project. Then, teachers are encouraged to review their materials, gather more as needed, design a plan for their making or engineering project, and time to execute the design.
There are three materials we will be working from: the main book (
https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/books/making-and-tinkering-with-stem), Collections: A STEM-Focused Curriculum (
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KPvU0UdLHW1dkMevh4k3TTKETPbjlyuk/view?usp=sharing), and Tinker Kit: Educator’s Guide (
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Q9xjNlXjNQj0_W2vP-BYLWHrIp_aQWEB/view?usp=sharing). Also included is a resource list of books for children and teachers (
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TfeP_c9QV8NPAcU9GMpuD6HvEffLz42UbrGXvWzKsU8/edit?usp=sharing).
Making and Tinkering with STEM is an introduction to the STEM way of teaching and offers a literature-based connection to engineering in the classroom.