STEM?
STEM Education refers to educating students in four specific disciplines: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. STEM aims to take all four categories and focus on project-based learning; the projects and activities conducted typically involve modern technology. It relies heavily on a classroom model that emphasises students and proactive learning, rather than learning by rote of a teach-centric class. With STEM education being a lot more hands-on than traditional learning, it’s important for both students and teachers that they are given the tools to practice that.
Interactive Displays
Implementing user-friendly interactive displays in the learning environment is pivotal to enhancing students’ learning capabilities. The importance of interactive displays has been highlighted through research by SMART Technologies. The research reveals over 400 responses from 26 countries across the world and found that attainment levels, especially in Maths and English, increase by up to 34% with an improvement of 16% with the introduction of interactive displays in the classroom. In fact, several studies have established that interactive displays have the potential to engage students in meaningful collaborative learning.
StarBoard
StarBoard is a global leader in innovative technology solutions, from interactive whiteboards to interactive flat panel displays, their products are the perfect for the classroom ecosystem. These displays are designed to improve engagement, performance, and learning experiences, all vital components in achieving a thriving classroom experience for both students and teachers.
StarBoard TE-QS and the TE-XP1
The TE-QS has the latest touch technology with a choice of different sizes and frames to make sure any classroom can accommodate it. Featuring the newest production of infrared touch and multi touch technology, the StarBoard TE-QS is easy and intuitive to use for anyone. Like the TE-QS, the XP-series provides the newest production of infrared touch technology, as well as two 15W front speakers and four functional colour pens. Along with the large surface area, the TE-XP1 offers excellent performance and is easy for anyone to use.
StarClass
Each one of these interactive displays come with StarClass , a management platform for interactive teaching in classrooms. It is designed to enable educators to control and manage the classroom effectively and supervise students’ activities, stimulating them to learn, communicate and collaborate. Combining these interactive displays with StarClass allows for a more interactive experience, one that contains a multitude of tools such as ‘Screen Broadcast, ‘Student Demonstration’, and ‘Group Chat’.
The Benefits
With these interactive displays, which are high quality and easily accessible, you can simulate a diverse range of activities and processes that would normally be entirely physical. For example, chemistry and physics benefit from virtual demonstrations that reach everyone in attendance and respond to input in real time. Similarly with mathematics – equations and calculations appear to students with increased clarity and can be modified and altered instantly without causing a mess that blackboards and whiteboards are prone to.
This also means that information captured on the board can be saved and returned to at a later point in time. With the pandemic enforcing a need to work remotely as well as individual circumstances, the ability for hybrid physical/remote learning is more important than ever. Being able to save information allows for students who have been absent to catch up on missed work, or even join in. This is not only great for the student but for the education institute as time is being saved.
Additionally, these displays enable more intelligent ways of interacting with information to children with special educational needs, making sure no student is excluded from a fantastic learning experience.
These displays are specifically designed to increase engagement and greater engagement translates into improved knowledge retention. StarBoard’s interactive displays offer a bold centrepiece for classrooms where knowledge and concepts can be clearly visualised in an attractive and engaging manner. No longer would classrooms need atlases,, Instead, teachers can bring up Google Maps, Google Earth, and Google Street View to bring a level of immersion into the classroom that could never be achieved before. Live maps are constantly being updated in real time and allow for zooming in too. In fact, being able to zoom in and manoeuvre would prove very useful in a variety of areas. Paintings could be further analysed by zooming in on spots to highlight brush stroke techniques or instead of static technical diagrams in engineering textbooks, students can deconstruct a machine using CAD models.
The Future
STEM revolves around teaching applicable skills instead of an abundant amount of general, theoretical knowledge. Today, information is available at the touch of a button, baseline knowledge is accessible from essentially anywhere, so classrooms no longer need to be an information-delivery system. It is vital then those classrooms are equipped with the right technology, like StarBoard’s interactive displays and StarClass. Not only will it benefit the students but also the institution as a whole; by implementing this technology in classrooms, it will increase time and cost efficiencies, practicality, and yield better results by increasing productivity and engagement. It is evident that interactive displays are not only a superior asset in regard to STEM learning, but learning in general.
To learn more about StarBoard and their product range, visit our vendor page: https://www.cmsdistribution.com/vendors/starboard