Focusing a New Lens: STEM Professional Development for Early Education and Care Educators and Programs

The purpose of this groundbreaking grassroots report is to engage early childhood educators and policy makers in understanding the urgency and importance of early childhood educator professional development in STEM education (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics). This report focuses on the teaching of children birth to five years old and out of school time students. STEM…Science…Technology…Engineering…Math. These are not curriculum topics that early childhood educators traditionally call to mind when planning activities. However, the evidence supporting the importance and emphasis on STEM education in early childhood is overwhelming. Children are engineers, problem solvers, and collaborators at heart- with boundless potential for leadership, creativity and innovation. Filling their days building and creating with blocks and manipulatives, wooden sticks and Legos, finger-paints and clay, they naturally seek solutions to challenges, discuss multiple options and, when necessary, start over! Essential to supporting, extending and deepening children’s STEM learning is the presence in classrooms of well-prepared educators, in both content and appropriate instructional strategies. Thus, this report urges educators to view their role, the children they teach and the early childhood environment through a powerful “new lens,” one that focuses on STEM education and professional development