With the conference “STEM and Values – How Values Can Be Taught in Schools,” the Siemens Stiftung will underscore the need for STEM and values development, call for the issue to be added to the political agenda and intensify the application of the pedagogical/didactic practice. The Siemens Stiftung will hold the conference on March 27, 2017, under the patronage of the German Conference of Education Ministers and in cooperation with the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. The conference will address the topic of values development in STEM instruction in an interactive format and will bring together education policymakers, academics and practitioners for a multi-perspective discussion.
Multi-perspective discussion should generate ideas for the classroom
The conference will begin with a keynote address that will explore the thin line that separates the solution-oriented potential of scientific and technical progress and the related risks that require special social responsibility. During the subsequent panel discussion, highly respected experts in neurosciences, sociology, psychology and education will debate a range of questions related to values development among children and adolescents: How can we strengthen their resolve, skills and attitudes about responsible societal involvement? And what role will values development play in the natural sciences and technology in this case?
A range of focal discussions will provide the conference’s guests with an opportunity to discuss a variety of tested concepts and approaches for developing values during scientific and technical instruction. Topics for discussion will include values-developing methods during joint experimentation, approaches for inclusive discovery-based learning, values development with a service learning form of instruction and learning or opportunities to use serious games. The conference will conclude with a podium discussion that will focus on specific needs for action regarding successful values development in STEM instruction.
The Siemens Stiftung has been promoting values-driven teaching and learning in scientific and technical courses as part of its international educational activities since 2014. Together with its partners, the foundation develops teaching and learning methods to create experimentation and experience-generating settings where students can learn, live and feel values. Through its work, the Siemens Stiftung is responding to the needs of an increasingly heterogeneous and rapidly changing society. Society needs methods and materials that promote professional knowledge and simultaneously enable students to assess and judge the things they have learned together. As a result, young people will be able to develop good judgment and a sense of responsibility as well as team spirit and soft skills.
Registration for the conference will begin in mid-December 2016 at https://fachtagung-mint-und-werte.siemens-stiftung.org/ .