Six Ways to Enhance your STEM curricula with TGR EDU: Explore

Each year in classrooms around the world educators connect students to knowledge, skills and experiences that lead to significant impact in their lives and communities.

For more than 24 years TGR Foundation has worked to empower youth through education and help them discover, develop and pursue their passions. A variety of free programs and resources at the flagship TGR Learning Lab and satellite sites across the country have driven transformation in teachers, facilitators, students and education.

TGR EDU: Explore was designed to expand use of the TGR Learning Lab’s award-winning curricula and experiences and make it accessible through the click of a mouse or the tap of a finger. With the six tips below educators can heighten their science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) curricula and student engagement with resources and practices that have been tested and proven successful for over a decade.

1. Advance your skillset and better engage your class.

Choose from a variety of free webinars, training videos and lesson plans offered on TGR EDU: Explore to help you introduce new skills and lessons into your classroom and become equipped with the tools and support to give you confidence in trying new methods of teaching.

2. Integrate social-emotional learning.

Studies and practice have shown that social and emotional learning leads to holistic education, challenges students to reposition their attitudes toward failure and develops a growth mindset among students that can benefit them in college and their careers. Watch the “Rethinking Failure” webinar to learn more about the approach and get started with a corelating lesson bundle.

3. Implement hands-on STEM activities and practices.

Implement a STEM lesson plan that includes engaging, hands-on activities. Through the digital experiences and self-paced modules, educators can engage students in innovative subjects from robotics, astronomy and video game design to ancestry and engineering. Accompanying educator guides help facilitators adjust the curricula based on their environment, resources and class size.

4. Develop futuristic skills.

Success in the modern workforce requires non-technical skills that can be developed in students through project-based learning (PBL). In addition to increasing student engagement, PBL teaches students life skills such as problem-solving, collaboration, critical thinking and how to take initiative. TGR EDU: Explore resources help educators test and deliver effective strategies to facilitate a project-based learning lesson in their STEM curriculum with industry professionals.

5. Connect new skills to students’ passions and future careers.

 As you implement new curricula your students will develop new skills and discover their passions. Introduce them to the wide array of careers to pursue their passions while using those skills and help them understand and map a path to success. College-access resources on TGR EDU: Explore are a great starting point with topics ranging from financial aid to finding the right college fit. It also provides self-paced digital modules, College Blueprint and Financial Pur$uit, which students can access and complete outside of class.

6. Take learning beyond the classroom.

 While each of the assets available through TGR EDU: Explore includes a career connection, there’s also a virtual field trip to Facebook headquarters that showcases brands as companies and exposes students to the many roles that allow companies like Facebook to operate. Bring this to life in your class by inviting professionals in your community to speak to your students or take a field trip to help students connect what they’re learning to the real world.

TGR Foundation believes the best way to impact the world is to empower those who enter it. TGR EDU: Create invests in educators to accelerate student empowerment through education in communities around the world. For more information on educator training programs and resources join the free educator community and visit TGRFoundation.org for upcoming events across the country.

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