The principle is to work - thanks to robotics - to solve a challenge by jointly addressing technical, scientific, ethical and creative dimensions.
Thus, the pupil realizes that to solve a problem, he will, for example, need notions in science, mathematics, programming and written and / or artistic expression to account for his work.

The underlying objective of STEAM is to inspire and guide more students, boys and also more girls, towards the subjects and professions of digital engineering and programming in a context of digitization. massive economy and society and massive competition on the subjects of digital innovation between companies and States.

First in the United States, then very quickly throughout the Anglo-Saxon then French-speaking world, working with the STEM method means acquiring not only scientific and technical knowledge but also developing so-called 21st century skills, that is to say skills in terms of collaboration, questioning, problem solving and thinking critical. Many teachers have been able to propose sequences of scientific or technical types in a disciplinary framework, but the momentum of the STEM did not make it possible to engage all the students on a massive scale for fairly scientific subjects.

From the early 2010s, STEM gradually becomes STEAM by adding the "A" of Arts which adds a broad creative dimension around not only artistic skills but also freedom of creativity, the introduction of design thinking -thinking, but also communication skills (getting a message across, also using several languages). This enrichment makes it possible to associate all the other "non-scientific or technical" disciplines and to engage more the majority of the pupils in much larger projects.

This change is based in particular on observations made on changes in work in certain large digital companies where engineers no longer totally devote their working time solely to their initial profession but can benefit from 10 to 20% for creative parallel projects.

In the Anglo-Saxon world, just like in our educational system, the "STEAM" operation makes it possible to work more by project, encompassing and giving meaning to an approach and not to a discipline, better understood by the students. In companies, projects are also global and also require consideration of all areas and all the capacities of the project stakeholders.
Instead of teaching disciplines in "silos" of independent subjects, courses are integrated, project-based and inquiry-based, with an emphasis on holistic learning.

However, in general, STEAM activities are often more successful in elementary school classes and up to college where the habit of working by projects exists (and where there are still devices to work by interdisciplinary projects) than at the level of high school where disciplinary programs and exam requirements impose more separation.
More information :
– * What are STEM ? (in English, accessed June 2019) : https://www.steampoweredfamily.com/education/what-is-stem/
– * STE (A) M, Teaching and learning through learning (accessed June 2019) : https://ec.europa.eu/epale/fr/blog/steam-learning-and-teaching-learning
– * The STEAM method, curriculum (consulted in May 2019) : https://cursus.edu/articles/41758/la-methode-steam-comment-integrer-des-approches-artistiques-en-sciences#.XP924tMzaL6
– * The importance of the arts in STEAM education (in English, accessed June 2019) : https://education.cu-portland.edu/blog/leaders-link/importance-of-arts-in-steam-education /

To build a STEAM project

To build a project according to the "STEAM" method it is necessary to follow a few steps and be sure to develop an "integrated", global project :

– * choose a problem adapted to a multidisciplinary project : the pupils will have to solve a problem which requires to implement at the same time solutions and scientific, technical and / or mathematical approaches while reflecting in a global way since the conception answers until their realization (s) and their presentation (s) (oral, written / animated ...) ;

– * choose a context or a story that "speaks" to the students : like any pedagogical approach, it is preferable to integrate the project into a scenario that will speak to the students, by integrating it into a narrative dimension that will make students think (or even dream) and make them want to become more involved ;

– * divide the complex task into simple tasks by drawing out the skills and disciplinary knowledge involved : the objective is to work with the students on a sequencing of activities, as for projects carried out by real professionals "in life real ". Working with STEAM means learning the real world, just like in a company where different interlocutors (project manager, or in agile methods "product owner" and "scrum master" for example) will dialogue in phases in front of specifications which will be scalable. The work by missions or challenges that will carry out the project can be for older children, middle and high school students, a kind of "role play" making it possible to solve a set of problems as in a real company (this point entering into the scripting introduced in the previous point).
The students will work almost autonomously with a form of tutoring from the teacher (s) and / or referent students (for example older students in upper classes, in interdegrés for example or through the tutoring of engineering students also in association with engineering schools).
The teacher (or teachers) have more of a supervisory role, of "coaching" the groups.
It is important to help build balanced groups at the start of the project.

In each well-defined phase, the students pool together before modifying or adjusting their achievement or before embarking on a new challenge.

– * work in groups of targeted skills or work by student affinity ?
Depending on your educational objectives, it will be necessary to define the distribution of groups of students :
– you can group them together by global challenges, each having to deal with all scientific skills, allowing everyone to progress in all areas (define scientific or mathematical problems, know how to explain them globally, associate ideas, represent them), creative ( develop, plan a route, schematize globally), techniques (build or adapt a robot and program it), artistic (decorate a route and objects), communication (prepare digital, written and / or animated presentations and know how to present them orally , in French and / or in foreign languages) ...
– you can group them according to the affinities of the students, the work will be divided between students who will be responsible for part of the work, each one will progress only in the areas where it has been chosen : a course design group, a group programming, a "communication" group ...
This solution makes it possible to go faster in carrying out projects but not all students progress in all areas, particularly scientific and technical. However, it can be a way to motivate technically weaker students in a collective project. It will require regular sharing so that each group can have a continuous overview of the progress of the project. Each student can discuss problem solving during the pooling phases.

Group work should allow everyone to acquire skills, whether or not with the support of digital tools, as needed : making mind maps to visualize a project, drawing sketches on paper, solving mathematical problems, finding programming solutions,

Some examples of implementation : robotic challenges

– * The Manbot Challenge 2019 - Mantes-La-Jolie Basin

This project concerns 19 classes from kindergarten to 12th grade, supported by multiple partners.
During this challenge the students must make a robot evolve on a defined plateau. Upstream, the teachers were able to organize their class in small groups of two or three students in semi-autonomy to solve intermediate challenges.

Examples around an initial problem solving and implementing both creativity (construction of the robot, realization of the course, programming and challenges to be solved and multimedia and multilingual presentation) :
– * Planting trees in an urban environment - Silvicultural robot (Challenge Roboty’c - Yvelines 2018)

– * Unload a barge and store its containers on the docks - Robot boatman (Roboty’c Challenge - Yvelines 2019)

Two other examples of challenges with important orientations on artistic creativity in addition :
– * First course tests - SQYROB (challenge of the Saint Quentin en Yvelines basin 78 - 2019) on the theme Robotics and Cinema

http://blog.ac-versailles.fr/sqyrob/index.php/post/31/03/2019/Premier-essai-du-parcours

– * The Rambot challenge (Rambouillet basin, 2019) on the theme of comics

More examples of challenges : http://www.dane.ac-versailles.fr/challenge