At the moment, the essential question is: Will I make it on time for the flight to Moscow with my TGC cohort, despite confusing flight information and multiple flight delays? However, IREX has requested that we reflect more deeply and select an essential question to focus our learning while we are in Russia. I have so many questions! And so do my students and colleagues. I will try to investigate as many of those as possible, but I have decided that my essential question will be:
How is effective STEM (Science. Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education implemented in Russia?
Some supporting questions that I will use to help me investigate this:
I have some initial assumptions that may or may not be accurate. Although, there is an increasing emphasis on STEM in the US, I wonder if that will be even stronger in Russia. I suspect that STEM courses in Russia may be more rigorous than ours. I wonder about the amount of “voice and choice” that Russian students have in selecting courses of study, but also in selecting project topics within courses. What about labs and hands-on activities? Group work? Field trips? Implications of testing?
These are all aspects that interest me.
How is effective STEM (Science. Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education implemented in Russia?
Some supporting questions that I will use to help me investigate this:
- How do societal values impact decisions?
- What is the role of experiential learning?
- How is student engagement supported?
- How are instructional materials utilized?
- What teaching strategies predominate?
I have some initial assumptions that may or may not be accurate. Although, there is an increasing emphasis on STEM in the US, I wonder if that will be even stronger in Russia. I suspect that STEM courses in Russia may be more rigorous than ours. I wonder about the amount of “voice and choice” that Russian students have in selecting courses of study, but also in selecting project topics within courses. What about labs and hands-on activities? Group work? Field trips? Implications of testing?
These are all aspects that interest me.