Inclusive STEM lessons
Experiments that challenge all learners
Together with our partners at the iMINT-Akademie from Berlin’s Senate Department of Education, Youth, and Family and the state teacher training Landesinstitut für Schulqualität und Lehrerbildung Sachsen-Anhalt (LISA), we have created a wide range of materials for inclusive lessons. Our common goal in heterogenous classrooms is to support teachers in shaping inquiry-based, hands-on and skills-based lessons in STEM subjects that challenge every learner. Since September 2022, the Web-based training “Inklusion in der digitalisierten Welt” (“Inclusion in the digitalized world”) complements our joint portfolio for German-speaking teachers.
Working Area:
Education
Region/Country:
International
The experiments enable individual promotion for learners in inclusive STEM lessons without sacrificing the classroom community experience. Everyone contributes to the extent that she or he is able. Handicaps – with or without special needs – or language, cultural, and socio-economic factors are not limiting or exclusive. While the subject matter is the same for all students, the material is introduced in a way that is easy to initially grasp, with incremental hints and additional assignments of varying difficulty providing further steps. Each student’s working and learning pace is accommodated, and the approach is based on diversity and community. Hands-on experience during lessons helps establish learning-process-related values such as team orientation, tolerance, and a sense of responsibility.
The collaboratively-developed teaching and learning materials are based upon Siemens Stiftung’s international education program Experimento and align with parts of iMINT-Akademie’s standards for experimentation in inclusive lessons. All materials can be downloaded and modified for free under the public creative commons license CC BY-SA 4.0.
The following experiments are available:
- Everyday materials (years 5 and 6)
- Measuring by sense (German) (years 5 and 6)
- Environment (years 7-10)
- Energy (years 7-10)
- Health (years 7 and 10)
The exercises on “Everyday materials” and “Measuring by sense” include media for language-learning methods and advanced challenges for gifted students in addition to the standard interactive media.
»A researcher asks for help on her trip around the world – a spark that ignites curiosity and unlocks every child’s gifts.«
Adaptive digital tools are particularly well suited to accompany learners individually in lessons according to their different abilities and prerequisites, to provide them with assistance and to challenge them. Currently only available in German, the Web-based training “Inklusion in der digitalisierten Welt” (“Inclusion in the digitalized world”) of the Siemens Stiftung and the iMINT-Akademie from Berlin’s Senate Department of Education, Youth, and Science familiarizes teachers with the central ideas of an inclusive and digital design of science teaching – from the basics to the development of inclusive approaches for their own teaching.
The Web-based training is aimed at STEM teachers of all grade levels, but also at educators of other subjects as well as students and those entering the profession. It is available free of charge and without registration on the Media Portal for STEM teaching.
Advanced training for fifth and sixth grade teachers
In Berlin and Brandenburg, regular three-day, face-to-face training sessions that focus on the following modules: “Basics of inclusive teaching,” “Individual language learning,” and “Opportunities and limitations of digital media in science lessons.” are offered by the iMINT Academy in cooperation with the Regionale Fortbildung Berlin and the Landesinstitut für Schule und Medien Berlin-Brandenburg (LISUM). In the seminars, the inclusive experiment units on “Everyday fabrics – a learning journey” and “Measuring by sense” are demonstrated, practiced, and analyzed. The seminars address the challenge faced by teachers of individually promoting students in heterogenous learning groups while still conducting challenging, differentiated lessons. Additional information and seminar dates can be found on the Berlin-Brandenburg education server.
»A researcher asks for help on her trip around the world – a spark that ignites curiosity and unlocks every child’s gifts.«
Ursula Gentili
+ 49 172 7683044