How to use STEM education to arouse students’ potential? Lok Sin Tong Yu Kan Hing Secondary School STEM Education Interview

August 19, 2021

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As you may know, STEM education is emphasized all over the world. The so-called STEM refers to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematic. How to integrate this knowledge with life is one of the goals of STEM. Hong Kong Lok Sin Tong Yu Kan Hing Secondary School is at the forefront of this educational trend. It has opened a maker laboratory in the school and promoted the “Maker Lesson” in junior high schools to encourage students to turn ideas into products. Earlier, TechApple visited and interviewed Lok Sin Tong Yu Kan Hing Secondary School, letting everyone take a look at their story of implementing STEM.

It was difficult to start the STEM education process 3 years ago

The STEM education curriculum of Lok Sin Tong Yu Kan Hing Secondary School is now in its third year. At that time, the principal and deputy school believed that STEM has a lot to do, and it is a knowledge system that Hong Kong students need in the long run. Vice President Wen mentioned that the biggest difficulty in the process is that Hong Kong does not have any reference cases: Yes, Hong Kong has good examples of programming, science, and mathematics, but there are no examples of combining all knowledge to cultivate makers, so they need to refer to STEM in different countries. The actual situation of education even flew to Singapore to “learn from the local experience.”

In the end, they decided to add a maker subject to the curriculum. The reason why STEM is not regarded as an extracurricular activity in some middle schools is that the principal encourages all students to refer to it, and emphasizes that “creator” is not the patent of a minority of students. Everyone You can use your expertise in this subject. The skills involved may be programming (Coding), product design, or the use of language skills to explain products.

Although this focuses on the STEM category, the idea behind it is to combine technology with various applications of life, and use knowledge to improve human life as the goal.

Makerke: Design your own products to solve life problems

Everyone should be interested to know, what exactly is a “Maker Class” professor? Teacher Jiang, who is in charge of the aid class, shared that the course is divided into several parts. Last semester, you need to learn a variety of knowledge, such as tool applications, scientific and technological principles, product design, etc.; after establishing a certain foundation, students will be grouped in the next semester. Design and produce inventions.

Teacher Jiang specifically mentioned that students’ creativity is often surprising. For example, some students thought of adding a refrigeration system to a vacuum flask to apply it to different scenarios, and emphasizing that “creative” is not just a wild imagination. They need to design a product. Report in class to explain what life problems the product solves and consider the feasibility of the design. At the same time, they need to accept questions and challenges from students. This is the same as designing a “Proposal” in the company and then persuading customers/ The boss is the same. The teachers said that the positive interaction of the students promoted the growth of their thinking.

Associate School Wen mentioned that one of the difficulties in promoting Makers in junior high school is that. Given that STEM education is still not popular in Hong Kong, students who have just entered Secondary One, they also add STEM education elements to their summer secondary school classes to make it easier for them to adapt to the maker course.

The product designed by the students of Lok Sin Tong Yu Kan Hing Secondary School won the Intel Computer Science Award earlier

The hardware is only an aid and does not emphasize what the school needs to buy

The Maker Lab of Lok Sin Tong Yu Kan Hing Secondary School opened the eyes of editors. Their tools are more complete than many small workshops. They have their own maker lab, 3D printer and two laser cutting machines, which is really enviable to us. However, the interview with the vice principal of Chinese mentioned that hardware is only an aid to learning and does not directly benefit students. In addition to learning to use 3D printers for shaping, students in Yuzhong need to use wire saws, screwdrivers, etc. to cut Wood, assemble your own products. Teachers believe that in the process of “hands-on”, they can learn more about product design and shaping skills.

The hardware and software used in the school are also quite diversified. There are experiments using Audino and various sensors. Students who are interested in programming can access Raspberry Pi and Linux systems. There are 3D printers shaped by FDM and SLA.

Creating a STEM campus hopes to promote the academic world

In addition to the maker department, Lok Sin Tong Yu Kan Hing Secondary School is also actively co-existing with different fish and vegetables and the marine life aquarium in the school, so that students can have different experiments in biotechnology and environmental systems. They believe that STEM has become an important issue in the education sector in recent years, but the academic sector still does not have a practical standard, and there are not many successful cases to refer to. They hope that the government can combine the existing information to form a unified Central Pool and make STEM in Hong Kong Development is smoother.

After all, STEM is just a means, not a complete goal. Associate Professor Wen said: “If you want a student to follow you to program completely, yes, he can do a program, but what he learned in this lesson is just “typing”. Our goal is to have them Understand the logic behind technology, and hope that they will develop their strengths in life. He specifically mentioned that it doesn’t matter if you fail in class. The important thing is to understand the reason for the failure and learn the knowledge you need to learn.

The subject of Yuzhong Chuangke is closely related to life. Form 1 is about smart homes, while Form 2 is about smart cities. It is expected to develop AI courses in Form 3 next year and is negotiating with different institutions such as Microsoft, City University, etc. Although the focus of cooperation is not on technology such as Matrix data processing, it will focus on the impact of AI and cloud computing in society and use cases, hoping to broaden students’ horizons.

TechApple Editorial Department: Students’ potential is surprising

The editors admire the efforts of the principal and teachers of Lok Sin Tong Yu Kan Hing Secondary School. It is true that their supporting facilities are eye-opening, but their understanding and implementation of STEM is even more impressive. In the past learning process, we were often asked to come up with standard answers, with a certain score or achievement as the goal, but the deputy principal pointed out that scores and public examinations are not the only starting line for students. Technology and creativity can also be a focus of their careers.

In the interview, Mr. Jiang shared a case with us: A student observed that his father working on a construction site had an annoyance, that the industrial helmet was too hot and it made his father wear it quite hard, and the student came up with a fan to cool down The program, self-study related abilities online, hoping to help Dad solve the problem. Although the product could not be used for real purpose in the end, it also cultivated students’ problem-solving ability and showed their concern for life problems.

And the Project Base approach really realizes that “studying is not seeking scores”, the previous grades may be a number; now the student’s achievement is a product, isn’t it more interesting to extend learning to the realization of life?