STEAM education is more interdisciplinary "knowledge integration", while maker education focuses on "practical creation" of ideas. There are great differences between them in the specific setting of course subjects.
Maker Education mainly provides basic, intermediate and advanced courses such as programming from scratch, electronic theory and practice of open source hardware such as Arduino, and construction and assembly of 3D printers and robots, so as to cultivate students' creativity, knowledge and skills and exploration ability. STEAM education mainly cultivates students' interdisciplinary practical ability by setting up communication disciplines such as science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics, which is a higher demand design based on a single discipline.
STEAM emphasizes the comprehensive ability of the subject, while maker education emphasizes innovation ability, and maker also contains a feeling of enjoying innovation and happiness.
In STEM teaching, the roles of teachers are mostly teaching designers, activity organizers, knowledge lecturers and learning guides. Teachers have multiple roles, and different teachers need to cooperate with each other to guide students to complete a specific project. Students are active participants, participating in the whole project independently, or learning interdisciplinary comprehensive knowledge together in group cooperation.
In maker education, students tend to be independent creators. They need to have their own unique ideas and realize them through effective means. In this process, students will also cooperate with other members, but in order to realize different ideas, teachers will play the role of supporters, will not interfere with students' ideas too much, will not presuppose too many specific questions, and teach a fixed knowledge system.
Common ground between STEAM education and maker education;
In terms of training or training methods, both focus on projects or problems. For the purpose of curriculum, everyone emphasizes student-centered, interdisciplinary, hands-on practice and strong connection with reality.
In terms of personnel training, it meets the demand of rapid social development for talents, and talents with innovative thinking will become the power of the future society. Interdisciplinary courses can better point to students' understanding and application of knowledge and improve students' problem-solving ability and creativity. Driven by social development, STEAM education and maker education are committed to the same goal, that is, to cultivate innovative talents that adapt to modern development.
In essence, the two have a high degree of commonality-maker activities need the theoretical basis of knowledge provided by STEAM education, such as the 3D One design of buildings, the corresponding engineering, the mathematical calculation of dimensions, and the art of improving the aesthetic feeling of models. Maker practice is the ultimate goal of STEAM education, that is, the knowledge system can only play a role if it helps entities to create, and even become a commercial product, connecting education and business.