Defined STEM: Great, organized addition to the classroom. Makes implementing projects easy.
Community Review for Defined Learning
My Take
I plan to do it again next year. I can't give a much better recommendation than that!
As a teaching tool, I appreciate knowing what the reading level of the articles are so I can get things to my students who struggle, but they can still contribute.
One thing I added was a jigsaw activity. I assigned each student in a group to read one of the articles provided. They then met with students from other groups who read the same article. After discussing the article the group came up with a list of important ideas from the reading. They took this back to their home group and shared what they learned from reading the article.
How I Use It
Defined Stem provided news articles about the topic, Coastal Geologist. Students used these to gather information instead of just doing an internet search. It allowed students to see real-world problems and problem-solving. It made their final products much more realistic.