As American education increasingly focuses on teaching STEM—Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math—subjects, some of the country's best educators revealed that they encourage students to get creative through the arts while learning math and science.

According to Quartz.com, "[r]esearchers at Michigan State University interviewed eight finalists and winners for the national US Teacher of the Year award, about how creativity informs their teaching style" and the resulting study revealed that all of them "shared a common interest in employing art to teach math and science and improve how children learn."

Alex Kajitani, for example, has previously won teacher of the year in California and has been a finalist for the national title and uses music and theater to teach middle school math and science lessons.

"Kajitani...uses acting to lighten the burden of learning math and science. He has a series of characters he embodies—students can ask 'Math Professor' about any topic unrelated to numbers, like language arts, and the 'professor' will connect the dots to math," the article said.

Additionally, Kajitani and other educators claimed to incorporate advertising into math and science lessons as well to get kids learning creatively. 

2008 national teacher of the year Mike "Geisen told the researchers he asked his students to make advertisements for specific concepts, like an advertisement for chloroplasts, to explain photosynthesis. The exercise also serves to bring arts education to a school that cut its art program, he said in the study."

Geisen said science scores in his middle school began to climb and that his students were genuinely getting excited about learning the subject.

Overall, the interviewed teachers found that by pursuing different teaching methods for science and math lessons that utilized the arts and therefore creativity, students enjoyed a better learning experience.

Read the full article here and comment below.

Article by Nicole Gorman, Education World Contributor

05/11/2015