“We want students learning in real-world, practical ways, not book info. In a science classroom now, you should not see textbooks. They will be learning by doing, tinkering,” said Dr. Angela Stanford.
Southern Arkansas University’s Dr. Stanford is one of three authors of a new educational book titled Tinkering with Tales: Using Children’s Literature to Engage in STEM, with co-authors Dr. Lisa Oden, also of SAU, and Dr. Julie Quast, former associate professor at Henderson State University. All three professors have taught a number of grades in K-12 schools before working in higher education.
Dr. Stanford is an Associate Professor of Education and the Director of the Middle School Education Program at SAU and was a science teacher for 23 years in public schools. She said that during her years as a teacher, she found that whatever literacy her students were working on, she could connect science instruction to it.
She stated that she did not want science to be a task on students, where they pull out textbooks for the last 30 minutes of the day. Instead, they could read about a scientific phenomenon that occurred in a fairy tale, and when the time to go over science began, teachers could reference that part of the story to tie in with their science lesson and investigate the phenomenon.
“One of the benefits of this book is that is all-encompassed,” said Oden, an Associate Professor of Education. “The science standards and literacy standards (are met). Another benefit is that all of the fairy tales that are mentioned in the book are all open-source material that you can get online.”
Stanford chimed in, stating that in a lot of schools, teachers are on a budget and when they get a book to teach their class, it may have a list of other book references that are unavailable to the teacher.
“You look in your classroom and you don’t have that book. You go to the library and they don’t have it either,” said Stanford. “It almost discourages teachers from using the lessons or material because they don’t have the additional books or materials to go with it. We wanted to make sure we used things that are readily available.”
Oden stated that most of the science materials needed would already be in a teacher’s home bookshelf and they would not have to purchase a STEM kit or any other additional materials. She said that their book is also good for parents and homeschool teachers because each tale in the book has a STEM lesson attached to it using household items.
With an open-source of resources, Stanford said that she wanted teachers to diverge from marking answers right and wrong on worksheets and instead help students think outside of the box. She said that children have so many questions about the world around them, but by the time they reach about third grade, they have been trained to only ask for the correct answer and not to explore why it is correct.
“When you look at the new jobs that are coming out, there are careers and positions that have not yet been created and students that we are training in K-12 need to be prepared for. We want them to be critical thinkers, investigate and come up with solutions. Even if they have not been trained to do certain things, we want them to be confident to find answers and solutions on their own,” said Stanford. Oden adding that they want students to problem solvers.
Tinkering with Tales: Using Children’s Literature to Engage in STEM was published on April 1, 2021 by Rowman & Littlefield publishing company and can be purchased through online booksellers. Their website, tinkeringwithtales.com, lists additional information about the book, the authors and links to where the book can be purchased.