About the Book
Shaping the Future with Math, Science, and Technology examines how ingenuity, creativity, and teamwork skills are part of an intellectual toolbox associated with math, science, and technology. The book provides new ideas, proven processes, practical tools, and examples useful to educators who want to encourage students to solve problems and express themselves in imaginative ways. The development of a technological knowledge-based economy depends on the development of educational systems that allow schools, teachers, and students of diverse capabilities, backgrounds and learning preferences do better with both content and imaginative problem solving. This book makes the case that it is, indeed, possible to educate our way to a better economy and a better future. Paying attention to 21st century approaches and skills can help accomplish those goals.
Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 Preface Chapter 2 Chapter 1: Innovation / Differentiation: 21st Century Math, Science, Technology Skills Chapter 3 Chapter 2: Classroom Assessments Chapter 4 Chapter3: Learning Mathematics: Problem Solving, Creativity, and Innovation Chapter 5 Chapter 4: Science Instruction: Promoting Inquiry and Innovation in the Classroom Chapter 6 Chapter 5: Technology &Education: Innovation, Digital Tools, and Preparing for the Future
About the Author :
DENNIS ADAMS is a Canadian education and technology consultant who has taught at the University of Minnesota and McGill University in Montreal. He has done graduate work at Harvard University and has a PhD from the University of Wisconsin. Adams is a veteran elementary school teacher who has authored more than a fifteen books on various educational topics. MARY HAMM is a professor of elementary education at San Francisco State University. She has taught at Ohio State University and the University of Colorado. Her background also includes extensive teaching at the elementary and middle school levels. In addition she has written many articles and books on science and mathematics education.
Review :
Shaping the Future with Math, Science, and Technology is a practical and powerful resource that will support teachers as they go about increasing their students' ability to explore new ideas and applications in math, science, and technology. The authors pay close attention to the social nature of learning and explain how collaborating with others can help individuals take responsibility for their own learning. They also point out that reasoning skills, patience, and dealing effectively with failure are all part of the fabric of innovation. I especially liked the point they made about how technology should support the human condition, rather than serve as an escape from it. As far as the classroom is concerned, Adams and Hamm view technology as a tool, not a toy. This timely book encourages us all to consider what it means to educate students in the 21st century and prepare for future possibilities.
The authors offer a fresh perspective on the importance of innovation to our future and point out how quality instruction can make a positive difference. They break new ground as they explore ways that educators can promote creativity and innovation with math, science, and technology instruction. Nurturing innovation involves encouraging learners to take informed risks, test hypotheses, and remain open to new ideas. The book makes a compelling case for stimulating students in a way that helps them apply the power of imagination in their lessons and in the world outside of school. I really liked the lesson plan ideas and the detailed procedures for standards-based activities. Shaping the Future with Math, Science, and Technology is sensible, useful, and interesting in a way that will make it a great addition to every educator's professional library.
Successful living in the 21st century requires creative and innovative thinking and this can be best developed in schools by teachers who are themselves innovative thinkers. This is the aim of this book, which provides a thorough discussion of the principles involved in creative learning, such as differentiated instruction, assessment, and multiple intelligences. The activities provided promote interesting and meaningful learning and equipstudents for the 21st century and beyond. This book also contributes to the professional fulfillment of the teacher.
This book is sensible, lively, and interesting in a way that will engage a wide range of educators. The authors provide accessible approaches for creative problem solving in math and imaginative inquiry in science and technology. Adams and Hamm also present standards-driven processes, ideas, and lesson plans in a way that will help teachers make learning clearer, bolder, and more connected. Shaping the Future with Math, Science, and Technology is a forward-looking book with many applications. It is bound to help everyone involved navigate the uncertain twists and turns of the twenty-first century.
This book does a great job of interweaving creativity, innovation, inquiry, and problem solving. It provides many original approaches, activities, and lesson plans that will help teachers ignite imaginative sparks of expression in their students in a way that generates many unique ideas and insights. Although the subject focus is on math, science, and technology, I particularly like what the authors have to say about preparing tomorrow's innovators. Although hopeful, they view the future with less of the exaggerated optimism that writers exhibited thirty or forty years ago. In the1970s, for example, if you told someone that after the last Apollo mission, astronauts wouldn't go back to the moon for many decades, no one would have believed you. A dose of twenty-first century realism is refreshing. Overall, this is a valuable, insightful, and very readable book that is bound to inform the thinking and the practical work of any educator.
The most valuable parts of Shaping the Future are its lesson plans and activities.
