BIS Steam on Secondary Campus
Navigation is through the buttons on the top of the page.
Introduction to the Site
Welcome, My name is Colin Astbury and I am a Computer Science / ICT / Digital Society Teacher and the Secondary STEAM Coordinator at the British International School of HCMC. This site is intended to fill a variety of purposes, to showcase my approach to STEAM, to showcase our extracurricular clubs, to detail the new Digital Society Course to parents and show the reading materials, to provide a list of programming resources, and any other purpose I can really come up with. I tried to keep all the sites separate, but it proved to be an unwieldly beast so here they are together in one place. Student, colleague, parent or whatever role you are here in, welcome.
STEAM
S - Science
T - Technology
E - Engineering
A - Arts / All
M - Maths
Introduction to STEAM
STEM is clearly defined. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Maths. This is working on projects that apply these separate disciplines to achieve 'technology-based' goals. As important as STEM is, STEAM transitions beyond numbers and making things. It adds value to numbers-based subjects, teaches problem-solving skills, and provides practice in skills where there is a shortfall.
The inclusion of the word Art or All changes the rules of the game. It means that any combination of subjects or the skills learned in subjects working together to solve a problem is now STEAM. It incorporates the whole curriculum.
It is a cross-phase approach to problem-solving. The skills learned are as applicable in KS3 as they are in KS5. It is a cyclical, structured approach that draws on cross-curricular skills to enable our students to deliver a solution to the problem, irrespective of their age. It is an opportunity for students to showcase the totality of their learning and experiences here at BIS HCMC.
This Google site will be detailing and outline how BIS HCMC Secondary approaches the STEAM challenges. That means there is a page on the MIT Abstracts in case they are useful for the future, a page on previous MIT challenges in case you want inspiration for project-based learning projects and an update on STEM projects such as F1 in schools and also VEX Robotics.
Please use the links across the top of the page to navigate your way around this site and if you can think of a way this resource can be modified to be more useful, please do email me at colin.astbury@bisvietnam.com so we can discuss this further.
Colin Astbury - October 2022