Why put the "A" in "STEAM" Learning?

Lots of educators and learning communities are talking about STEAM education. You may be asking, why include an arts perspective in STEM learning?

Starfire STEAM programming (STEM+Arts) links the creative arts to science, technology, engineering and math to give students the tools they need to the innovators, educators, leaders, and learners of the 21st century! 

By integrating art with STEM, Starfire gives students the creative spark to harness the capabilities of STEM skills. Our students fuse an in-depth knowledge of STEM with a focus on arts to creatively integrate and apply that knowledge to solve real world problems. 

Starfire teachers share their passion for the creative arts with our students. Art and creativity infuse Starfire’s enrichment classes, Fun with STEAM virtual labs and MathTastic Help sessions.

Starfire STEAM students take thoughtful risks, engage in experiential learning, persist in problem-solving, embrace collaboration, and work through creative processes. Students learn more and they retain more of what they learn. 

Find out more about what STEAM education can do for your child by checking out our current courses or getting in touch with the Starfire support team!

Why Learn to Code?

Students building new worlds in Scratch

Starfire believes every child can benefit from learning a programming language!
Starfire coding teachers are trained as computer scientists, R & D researchers, engineers and programmers. What’s more, they are inspired to share their love of coding and professional expertise with their students.

Students who code are more creative and innovative in their approach to framing and solving problems. Students learn mathematical and computational concepts—they problem solve and think mathematically using logic and systematic reasoning. Starfire coding students are exposed to a world of exciting possibilities through their programming skills. Learning coding from Starfire’s expert teachers opens up the creative and professional horizons of our students.

What do Students Do in Class?
Guided by Starfire teachers, students create projects that are personally meaningful and express their ideas through fun, hands-on projects. They will learn to imagine, design, create and share their own websites, projects, games and animated stories.

Speed vs Depth in STEAM Learning

Starfire teachers encourage depth, creativity and fluency in STEAM learning. We know that every student can be a “math person” or “science person” with the right encouragement and support!

Many students incorrectly believe that being good at STEAM learning means being fast. In our classes, we dissociate success from speed.

When we value fast computation over other skills, we discourage deep thinking, risk taking and meaningful progress. Starfire teachers teach students to think deeply, connect methods, reason, and justify their methods. 

Computational Thinking

GIve your child the skills and the passion to tackle problems with innovation and perseverance with Starfire’s Computational Thinking class.  

Computational Thinking is the prerequisite skill for understanding the technologies, challenges and opportunities of the future. It is a systematic thought process, rather than a specific body of knowledge.

Starfire teaches the four cornerstones of computational thinking: decomposition, pattern recognition, abstraction, and algorithms. Decomposition invites students to break down complex problems into smaller, simpler problems. Pattern recognition guides students to make connections between similar problems and experience. Abstraction invites students to identify important information while ignoring unrelated or irrelevant details. Lastly, students use algorithms when they design simple steps to solve problems.

Computational thinking skills are important to many disciplines and careers and can be used to support student success across all disciplines including science, technology, engineering, math and the humanities.

Learn more about Starfire’s Computational Thinking class:
https://www.starfireed.com/computational-thinking