VSA STEAM Day 2022 – Mr. Hill’s Musings

At VSA, we just lately held our initial STEAM Working day. We’re presently educating and discovering remotely in Hong Kong due to a rise in COVID situations, but we still created it transpire!

The event had many aims:

1. To advertise all matters STEAM
2. To give learners creative, fingers-on experiences at property
3. To ‘shake up’ distant mastering just after shelling out several weeks on the internet now
4. To give course lecturers a crack from organizing and let them to capture up on supplying responses, etcetera.

As outlined, the Technology and Innovation staff (Fred Yue, John Hendrickse and I) took accountability for the scheduling so that course academics didn’t have to (whilst they had been more than welcome to prepare their very own routines if they desired to). We prepared eighteen diverse things to do and well prepared completely ready-to-use slides. Acquire a seem at the Padlet screenshots to see the range of functions!

When planning, we tried using to cater for the various age groups and take into consideration the methods that students have been likely to have obtain to at residence. Though most pursuits were intended to be standalone enjoyment, we also designed connections to current models of inquiry exactly where possible. For case in point, 12 months A few learners ended up mastering about mild and seem.

Course instructors then chose from our recommended lessons, copied the slides to personalise them, and facilitated the lessons. This is where we (the TI team) quit taking credit rating. It was the enthusiastic class instructors who built the magic transpire and ensured that the day was a accomplishment. Setting up is simple facilitating these lessons on Zoom with 20-eight kids is the demanding portion (specially with the little ones). They all did a amazing work!

As you can see, we requested college students and academics to add their creations to our Padlet. I have never witnessed a busier Padlet! Including further routines from the course instructors, there are more than twenty columns and about 4 hundred posts! I want I could share it on right here but I improved not for privacy reasons. I hope you can see from the screenshots how incredible it is!

I was confused with pleasure as I popped into the classes and watched the Padlet fill up. It manufactured my heart so happy! The young ones had an absolute blast and the academics ended up remarkable. This was a brilliant team effort and hard work!

As I outlined in my earlier blog write-up, I will not be at VSA upcoming 12 months. I’ll be Deputy Principal at the new sister college in Shenzhen. I expect STEAM Day can be an yearly occasion at both equally educational institutions. With any luck ,, they will all be in particular person in the potential! Fingers crossed!

In the meantime, I feel we proved that distant discovering doesn’t have to imply Zoom, Google Classroom, Seesaw or even screens! Young children can be innovative at house. In fact, performing close to limits with minimal assets forces us to be even extra imaginative.

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