美国STEAM教育的发展脉络、特点与主要经验

The Development, Characteristics and Main Experience of STEAM Education in The United States

当前,STEAM教育已被不少国家视为培养复合型创新人才、提升国家竞争力的重要途径。STEAM教育发源于美国,经历了STS-STEM-STEAM几个发展阶段。美国STEAM教育的特点是:聚焦于现实世界存在的问题与困难;强调通过工程设计流程来制定解决方案;倡导通过协作学习开展开放式探索;鼓励答案的多样化且认可失败是学习的必要部分。为了促进STEAM教育的有效实施,美国不仅将STEAM教育提升到国家战略层面、出台STEAM教育政策和法案,而且还持续加大对STEAM教育的经费投入,构建了一体化的STEAM教育体系,对开展STEAM教育的学校进行认证。

At present, STEAM Education has been regarded, by quite a few nations, as an important approach to cultivate innovative and interdisciplinary talents and enhance national competitiveness. Originated from the United States, STEAM Education has roughly gone through three stages of development, namely STS, STEM, and STEAM. American STEAM Education sets up a paradigm which can be characterized in three aspects： concentrating on real-world problems, developing solutions via Project Design Process, students conducting open exploration during the process of cooperative learning, trying multiple ideas and daring to be wrong which are taken as necessary parts of learning, etc. In order to improve the effective implementation of STEAM Education, the United States upgrades STEAM Education to the national strategic level. Under such a plan, American government has issued a series of policies and acts related to STEAM education, including constant increase on the financial support, constructed an integrate STEAM Education system based on the STEAM framework, as well as carried out accreditation upon educational institutions that have offered STEAM courses. The present research tries to trace the development of American STEAM Education, analyzes its characteristics, and summarizes the main experience, aiming to provide useful reference and inspiration for STEAM Education in China.