Reflecting on Science

    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 learning in a direction they are able to relate to and find interest in. The video of the class doing the outdoor exploration activity perfectly outlined how students taking control of their own learning can be highly beneficial. This section of the course has caused me to look at teaching pedagogies in a new light. I now look at it in a way where I question how I can alter the pedagogies so students can understand and apply it to their learning in their own way. This will allow teachers with all kinds of teaching styles to teach students with various learning styles because they are able to alter the framework given by the teacher to meet their own specific needs. Inquiry-based learning allows students to take authority over their education, hence allowing them to guide their learning in the way they find most interesting. In modern-day education, I believe there needs to be a shift from traditional teaching to student-driven teaching. Collaboration and communication are two aspects that are extremely important and should be incorporated into every classroom, no matter the subject.

    When reading through this section of the textbook, the quotation that was most impactful to me was, "School science is often experienced as the imposition of objective, depersonalized information – that is, about the opposite of engagement and design," (Davis et. al., 2019). This is a significant sign that there needs to be a transition within the subject of science to increase student engagement and design. If we want students to continue their education in STEM, there needs to be a component that is engaging for them.

These fractals are an accurate representation of how our knowledge has multiple levels to it and is continuously expanding. 

Davis, B., Francis, K., & Friesen, S. (2019). STEM. In STEM education by design: Opening horizons of possibility (pp. 87-111). essay, Routledge.