Ms. Venosa's STEM Blog

    The incorporation of technology in the classroom has become more prevalent in the past 20 years. When I reflect on my own schooling experience, the presence of technology from when I entered the school system 17 years ago has changed immensely up until today. One of the main things I found interesting from this section was the fact that technology does not always refer to digital technology - there are various forms of technology. The quotation,  "...technology is about more than objects and tools; it refers to the ideas, practices, artifacts, and sensibilities that define a culture" (Davis et, al., 2019), really emphasizes how technology is represented in different forms. Without even realizing it, technology has been present in the classrooms; however, it has taken a turn to be present in a more digital way. As a teacher, it will be important to understand the different forms of technology and how to incorporate technology in an appropriate manner. One of the main takea

    The transition from focusing on a mathematics lens to focusing on a scientific lens has opened up brand new ways of higher level thinking in regard to STEM courses. Starting off with the fractals activity, I was trying to understand how it related to the sciences and struggled to find the answer myself. However, the answer was more abstract than I thought; the fractals represent our knowledge and various dimensions. Each level of the fractal represents the next step of our knowledge and it is continuous to symbolize how our knowledge continuously expands. This represents how each branch of STEM that we focus on, unravels a new pathway to higher level thinking.      One of the main things that stood out to me is the emphasis on student-driven learning throughout this topic. I love the idea of teachers being a guide but the students are the ones to decide where they want to go with it. Inevitably, this idea increases student engagement because students are able to direct their learni

     As I progress through each week, I feel like my ability to connect to maths and sciences in a different light is slowly progressing. I am able to approach these subjects from different perspectives, which will benefit my teaching pedagogy in order to engage all of my students. As we all know, not every student learns the same, and as a teacher, it is essential for us to understand how we can adapt our approaches to subjects in order to meet the needs of all students. This was shown extremely well through the activity where we were tasked with creating a shape with building cubes, to create a shape with the smallest surface area. Although we were given a task, we were not told how we had to find a solution; we were simply given the tools to find a solution in our own ways. For someone like myself, who did not have a positive outlook on mathematics growing up, I found this activity engaging because I was able to come up with a solution in my own way; there was no "right" w

 These first few weeks have me reflecting on what education is to me and how everyone's encounter with it does not necessarily reflect the same as my own. I have quickly realized that there is no right answer to what education is, it is what is most useful to the individual. My concept of what education is has been influenced by my own experiences; causing the creation of a subconscious bias. Reflecting on the first few weeks of the course content, it is extremely evident how there are many external influences on STEM education. Some of the ones that caught my attention were the growing use of technology within a classroom and its impact on education, as well as the influence of various teaching pedagogies. As someone who is not directly in the STEM field, I have thoroughly enjoyed listening to my peers' insights on the topics from their STEM perspectives. Diving into our discussions about the impact of technology in today's society, it highlights how evident the use of tec

      Hi everyone and welcome to my blog! This is a space that will be exploring and reflecting STEM through my eyes. I am in my Fourth Year if Concurrent Education, with teachables in Physical Education and French. I do not have much experience with STEM programs, but I am hoping to use this platform as a way to reflect on my interactions with STEM throughout this course. I am hoping to use this blog to express my thoughts and ideas in relation to what we are learning in this course. Many of my ideas are influenced by an "outsider's" perspective, as I am not directly involved in any STEM streams.      I am excited to start this journey with all of you following along! Stay tuned to see the evolution from September to December!