(StatePoint) The U.S. may be short as many as three million high-skilled workers by 2018, according to National Math + Science Initiative predictions. In response, more educators and schools are embracing the idea that today’s curriculum must include Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math (STEAM), in order to adequately prepare children for the future.
With this shift comes the need for new educational tools. Here are three big ways that classrooms are changing to keep up with this year’s curriculum.
Cohesive Lesson Plans
You may remember shuffling from one class to another during your school days, learning subjects in a siloed style. After you graduated, you probably realized that’s not how the real world works. Luckily, schools that are focused on STEAM-related subjects appreciate this fact and, as a result, many teachers today are synthesizing the principles of multiple subjects at once for greater cohesion.
From art projects that incorporate math concepts to science projects that require an artistic hand, students today can expect their teachers to use games, hands-on learning stations and interactive digital technology to go beyond recitation in order to invent, create and discover.
Projecting the Future
Today’s teachers are saying goodbye to the old school projectors you may remember from your own childhood, and with good reason. New projectors are designed to bring lesson plans to life within seconds.
For example, Casio’s line of Ultra Short Throw projectors offers teachers the ability to present interactive multimedia content directly from a mobile device, USB stick, laptop or even the internal memory of the machine itself. Plus, no time is lost in getting the lesson set up once the bell rings, as an image can be displayed at full brightness in a matter of seconds.
The icing on the cake is that these new projectors are environmentally-friendly and can be easy on a school’s budget, reducing power consumption by up to 40 percent and offering an operating life of 20,000 hours. Savvy schools can use the saved money on other STEAM-related programming needs.
Add it Up
Math class is more important than ever, and students and teachers are gearing up accordingly with up-to-date graphing calculators that can enhance understanding of mathematic principles. New calculators, such as the PRIZM fx-CG10 from Casio, are allowing students to create their own graphs over pictures of real-life scenes to better understand the functions from the graphs. Additionally, today’s calculators feature color LCD with a full textbook-style display to make classroom learning, as well as homework, easier to digest. To learn more, visit Casio.com.
As the world changes, so does the classroom. New tools are helping educators prepare students for tomorrow and for challenges solvable by better STEAM knowledge.
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