50 Best Kept Secrets of STEM Teaching

Learn all of the best tips and tricks for teaching STEM or STEAM or Makerspace Education. These are the industry secrets of tons of expert teachers from around the world! Many of these secrets work for all types of teaching and teachers!

1. It is awesome teaching STEM and Maker Ed! You just do fun things all day with kids! It’s like teaching should be.
2. STEM based learning is fun! Have fun with your students!
3. Make sure to build motivation and purpose into every day. Explain Why. Inspire optimism and excitement in your students for their own projects.
4. Engaging, personalized projects will prevent almost all of the discipline issues.
5. Join forces with other teachers. The synergy of connecting all different content areas is powerful.
6. Your students should do more work than you do.
7. Assessing students for their growth and progress is more important than the perfection of their project.
8. Grading students on essential skills and professional skills is what we should be focusing on.
9. Have students grade each other with honest and positive feedback. It will save you a ton of time.
10. There is nothing wrong with being strict or in having high expectations. Setting specifications and constraints at the beginning of projects will allow everyone to know what is expected.
11. If you keep a list of the verbs associated with Bloom’s taxonomy handy, you will find it easier to design engaging lessons that appeal to a variety of learning styles.
12. Using a Design Thinking approach to Makerspace and STEM project really helps kids focus their thinking to create the best projects possible.
13. Walk students step-by-step through the design thinking process. Have them record everything. It will show you how they have grown and it will help them know where to go next.
14. Always have students reflect on the success and the learning of their project. This is the most powerful evidence of student learning you can possible collect.
15. Always have one go-to backup plan.
16. Allow students’ opportunity to work however they physically feel comfortable - standing, sitting, walking, etc.
17. Move frequently around the room to different groups and students. Keep students focused on projects, constantly redirect.
18. A messy classroom is a sign of limitless potential for trouble. Find time to organize everyday.
19. Do not try to ‘fix’ a student’s project. You will usually break it.  
20. Listen to your students more than you speak to them. Students should come first in this student centered approach to learning.
21. Each class is different. Each student is different. This is the toughest challenge of our profession. But these differences are what make great collaborative groups.
22. After an incident has happened, examine your own actions. What did you do to cause the problem? What can you do better next time? How can you prevent this from happening again?
23. Plan to ignore the small stuff. ‘Is it a Big Deal or Little Deal?’
24. Don’t waste time in debate when an infraction is clearly an infraction. Don’t make a big scene out of small mis-uses of materials and tools.
25. Think ahead, how can you prevent unacceptable behavior. Give as much instruction as possible, so everyone knows what to do next.
26. Group students homogeneously by abilities. Watch who becomes the leader, praise each group member for their successes and contribution.
27. Determine an underlying issue with a student problem and work to solve it.
28. Invite parents to see students progress. Share videos, photos, social media posts, emails, anything to get their attention.
29. Highlight one student or group per project. Have them ‘take over’ your social media; sharing their progress through the project.
30. Everything you say in class today will be repeated at dinner tables across the community tonight.
31. Never be the only one in the building to know something important.
32. Make connections outside your school walls. It takes a village.
33. Invite all sorts of people into your class who students can learn from and experience being around.
34. Have students set long and short term goals for individuals, by groups and for the entire class.
35. Excellent STEM and Maker Education are project and problem based learning experience. All meaningful STEM and Maker projects should start with a meaningful problem that students are excited to solve.
36. Look for problems in your schools that you can incorporate into meaningful STEM and Makerspace projects for your students.
37. Reach out to community members and businesses and ask them what problems they need to solve. Build these into challenges for your students.
38. Beg, borrow, ask, scavenge, refurbish for tools & materials for your Makerspace.
39. Do donation drives for different materials & tools you need in your Makerspace. Be specific about what you need only requesting 1 or 2 things at a time.
40. Be prepared, by always being prepared. Have the tools and materials you use frequently close by, in the same place, ready to go, as needed
41. Find ways to learn new tools. Save copies of user guides in a place easy to access.
42. Teach students how to use tools and materials. Keep cheat sheets near by so students, and you, can easily refer to the directions when they need help figuring a tool out.
43. Explicitly teach students where and how to clean up, how to store things, how to take things out and put them back.
44. Watch videos about tools and materials to learn how to use them. Reach out to the company when you need help.
45. Do a safety overview of the whole space at the beginning of your time together. Do mini safety talks before you begin working on each project.
46. Make space for a lot of emotional energy when having successes and failures in STEM projects.
47. Take your successes home with you but leave your problems at school.
48. Your 'worst' students deserve your best.
49. Muster up positive energy for every student. They deserve it.
50. “When you’re going through hell, keep going.” ~Winston Churchill

Learn more about how WhyMaker can help support teachers STEM and Maker Ed journies through instructional coaching.

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