(1) Both schools and parents recognize the importance of family communication.
Preschool education plays a very important role in the process of human growth. The relevant knowledge, methods and ideas that a person has mastered in the pre-school education stage will have an important impact on the subsequent higher-level learning. With the continuous improvement of the comprehensive quality of Chinese residents, parents hope that their children can master a variety of skills and knowledge, and the whole educational environment requires kindergartens to train students with higher comprehensive quality. Compound talents have become the basic quality requirement of talents in the process of social development, and the training mode of compound talents will become the inevitable requirement of modern talent training. In this case, it is of great practical significance to vigorously develop STEAM education in preschool education. STEAM education has been widely concerned. STEAM stands for science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics. It is a new form of preschool education with the main goal of inspiring children's scientific and artistic talents and cultivating students' comprehensive quality. For STEAM education, many kindergartens and parents hold different attitudes and views. In this new form of education, there will inevitably be some poor communication between the two sides, which also makes it difficult for many kindergartens to carry out STEAM education smoothly. Poor communication at home has brought many obstacles to the implementation of STEAM education in kindergartens.
Bad family communication will eventually affect young children. Many parents and teachers are aware of the importance of family communication, which is even more important in the process of promoting new forms of education. Family communication can promote parents and teachers to reach an agreement on teaching activities, parents will become more cooperative in teaching activities, and children's family education will be effectively guaranteed.
(b) The proportion of parents participating in family communication has increased.
With the continuous improvement of the education level of China residents, more and more parents with higher education pay more attention to their children's education than before, and more parents participate in family communication. In the past, when kindergartens held parent-teacher conferences or organized related parent-child games, many parents always refused to attend or invited nannies to attend on the grounds of busy work, but so far, this situation has improved significantly. In recent years, parents' willingness to participate in family communication has increased. These parents will not only supervise their children's learning activities, but also actively participate in educational activities to cooperate with teachers' teaching activities, which provides good external conditions for the promotion of new education. Although the teaching content and teaching form of STEAM education are very different from those of traditional kindergartens, the promotion and development of STEAM education may not be too difficult when parents' willingness to communicate at home grows.
Second, family communication in the context of STEAM education
(A) Some parents have different opinions on the promotion of STEAM education.
The promotion of STEAM education depends not only on kindergartens or related education departments, but also on the support and understanding of parents. The communication between kindergarten and parents can promote the smooth development of STEAM education. In the promotion and application of STEAM education, some kindergartens carry out STEAM education from the perspective of cultivating children's comprehensive literacy, and allocate teachers from various disciplines in teaching activities, hoping to provide children with more comprehensive education in science and technology, engineering, art and mathematics, and enrich their knowledge fields.
From the parents' point of view, some parents lack knowledge and understanding of STEAM education. They think this form of education is very different from the traditional one. They are more familiar with the traditional early childhood education model, which focuses on language, numbers and English, but they don't know much about science, technology, engineering and art related disciplines in STEAM education. These parents think that there is no need to receive STEAM education for preschool education. They are more willing to let their children receive traditional pre-school education focusing on language, numbers and English teaching. The traditional form of preschool education can make children have the subject foundation of primary school and junior high school in early childhood. Some parents don't even care about their children's education in kindergarten. They think that what kind of education children receive is a matter for kindergartens and teachers, and they don't need to care too much. In this case, many parents have objections to the implementation of STEAM education in kindergartens, and kindergartens have not explained the forms and advantages of STEAM education to parents, which makes both sides have many misunderstandings about the form of education.
(B) the lack of knowledge exchange between parents and teachers
STEAM education even involves a wide range of subject knowledge, many of which may be beyond children's ability. Children are weak in data collection, data arrangement and knowledge understanding, which may make some STEAM education links need the active participation of parents, which is of great significance to the promotion of STEAM education, but many parents have a low level of education. They are not familiar with the knowledge of science, engineering, technology and other disciplines. They can't guide students to study science, engineering, technology and other subjects in family life, and they can't answer questions from these subjects. Some parents are busy with work and have no time to communicate effectively with kindergarten teachers on children's education, which makes it difficult to effectively carry out STEAM education in family education.
In traditional subject education, parents have a certain understanding of their children's knowledge of English, mathematics and Chinese. Parents and teachers often don't need to communicate with each other in subject knowledge. Both sides carry out kindergarten education and family education on the basis of understanding subject knowledge. Under the background of STEAM education, parents may not know much about emerging disciplines. In this case, one parent will have a blind spot of knowledge and cannot effectively undertake the responsibility of family education.
(C) lack of diversified communication methods
STEAM education involves a wide range, and many educational links can't rely solely on teachers' classroom teaching. Family education is equally important for the formation of students' scientific and artistic literacy, which requires parents and kindergarten teachers to communicate actively and effectively in STEAM education. However, so far, many kindergarten teachers and parents still have not established effective communication methods. In the traditional process of subject education, teachers only need to feedback their children's learning in kindergarten to their parents by SMS, WeChat or telephone. The communication between the two sides is mainly written communication, while STEAM education needs various forms in communication. Take science education as an example. Science education can not only rely on teachers' knowledge in class, but also require students to observe nature and carry out relevant experiments. Some observation or experimental tasks may need to be completed after class, and some observation or experimental tasks need the joint participation of parents. In this case, parents need to know the contents of these tasks in detail, and record and supervise their children's completion. Parents may need to shoot videos, record their children's operations and send them to teachers. In this case, the forms of communication between parents and teachers will be richer and the content of communication will be more complicated.
Thirdly, suggestions and countermeasures to promote family communication under the background of STEAM education.
(A) Kindergartens need to explain the form and content of STEAM education to parents.
Good communication is that both parties know what they are communicating. If one of them is not very clear about the content of communication, there may be many misunderstandings and frictions between the two sides in specific activities. In the process of preschool education, STEAM education is a new educational form different from traditional education. Some parents are not familiar with this form of education. Education departments and kindergartens should explain the educational forms, contents and advantages of STEAM education to parents in detail, so as to enhance their understanding of STEAM education.
In order to better explain the form and content of STEAM education to parents, teachers can organize experience classes and invite parents to participate in the study of STEAM courses. Parents can better understand the teaching forms and advantages of STEAM education courses through personal experience. In addition, kindergartens can also hire off-campus education experts, hold education meetings, discuss the form and content of STEAM education with parents, patiently answer parents' doubts, correct parents' misunderstanding of STEAM education, and promote parents' recognition of STEAM education.
(2) Form a good communication atmosphere on the basis of knowledge exchange.
In a person's growth stage, children are more curious and receptive to new things, but there are also problems of poor cognitive level and poor self-control, which makes children's preschool education stage have a certain dependence on family education. Preschool education depends not only on kindergarten teachers, but also on parents' education. Home cooperation can ensure the effective development of preschool education. Under the traditional education form, the communication barriers between home and school are relatively small, and parents are relatively familiar with the traditional English language and mathematics. In daily life, parents can guide their children's subject education. However, during the implementation of STEAM education, parents are not familiar with emerging disciplines such as science, engineering and art, and lack the ability of family guidance. The lack of family education may not enable students to cultivate good scientific and artistic literacy.
In order to form a good communication atmosphere between parents and kindergartens, parents need to master some knowledge of STEAM. In teaching activities, many parents may not know much about STEAM, which brings certain difficulties to the communication between the two sides. Teachers should actively help parents learn and acquire relevant knowledge. Parents can also ask the teacher what they don't understand. Teachers should actively spread the concept of STEAM teaching and related subject knowledge to parents, so that parents can have the ability of after-school counseling. On the basis of knowledge exchange, parents and kindergarten teachers can form a better communication atmosphere. After forming a good knowledge exchange atmosphere between parents and teachers, children will be interested in STEAM knowledge in this exchange atmosphere, and may participate in the communication between parents and teachers, thus forming a good learning atmosphere in kindergartens and families.
(C) the establishment of various forms of family communication
In order to further promote the development of STEAM education, parents and teachers should not only communicate through traditional forms such as WeChat, telephone and SMS, but also establish more diversified teaching communication forms between families. Parents and teachers can communicate through videos, live broadcasts, etc., or they can often hold learning exchange meetings or organize extracurricular practice. In the process of extracurricular practice, parents, teachers and children can complete scientific and technological research together. In the process of art education, kindergartens can organize exhibitions and get-togethers and invite parents to watch them. Relying on various forms of communication, family communication will become closer.