Use STEAM to deepen whole-person development, discover highlights, and promote career planning

With the rapid development of science and technology, STEAM education not only provides knowledge and skills, but also inspires students' multi-faceted potential. CUHK FAA Thomas Cheung Secondary School Keep up with the pace of the times and set up multiple platforms to promote STEAM education and help students with their personal growth and career planning. Principal Leung Kwok Ho pointed out: "Many students are actually very talented, but they may not be aware of their advantages." He hopes that through the STEAM learning process, students can discover their highlights and fully demonstrate their potential, thereby enhancing their self-confidence, finding their direction in life, cultivating all-round development, and becoming the pillars of society in the future.

Innovation and Technology Leadership Training Course to Assist Career Planning and Development

The school implements STEAM education in accordance with the three-tier structure of gifted education of the Education Bureau and has set up innovation and technology leadership training classes to help students find their own goals, promote personal development and cultivate correct attitudes. The course covers a diverse range of STEAM projects, such as programming, drones, smart homes, 3D printing, mechanical vehicles and metaverse design, etc., allowing students to choose different projects in the "first-level" structure, learn STEAM knowledge and skills, and explore their own interests and potential.

In STEAM training, the school adopts the "students teach students" model, and arranges top students in the "second level" or students who have won competitions to serve as "little teachers" to form a mutually supportive relationship between seniors and juniors and realize the inheritance of experience. This not only helps young teachers understand their potential and highlights, but also cultivates their leadership skills, and then accumulates relevant experience, which helps explore their career plans.

For "third level" students, the school cooperates with colleges and universities to provide higher-level learning and training to help them find their life goals. Principal Leung Kwok Ho said: "A virtuous cycle is formed through STEAM activities, allowing STEAM activities to change students' learning attitudes to give back to learning, and then use learning to give back to the development of STEAM." Under this excellent system, Zhang Zhong's students won the "2024 City University Innovation and Technology Challenge" and received the best report award. From research and development, processing software and hardware skills to reporting competition exercises, they were all supported by classmates, allowing students to play different roles at different stages.

Explore the field of science and technology and broaden students’ horizons

Before the "students teach students" model was introduced in the Innovation and Technology Leadership Training Course, the courses were mainly taught by external tutors. The on-campus teaching team participated in learning with the students and learned professional knowledge from the external tutors. Subsequently, the on-campus teaching team internalizes the learned content and transforms it into teaching materials suitable for students, and then imparts relevant knowledge to students, "teaching students to become teachers", and gradually establishing a model for students to learn and teach independently. The more mature courses currently include the "Urban Pioneer AI Robot" course developed by the school itself, "Minecraft Battle Programming Course", "Drone Course", etc. Most of the courses can be connected to future competitions or scientific research projects, which can broaden students' horizons and enable them to use the knowledge they have learned. Moreover, they constantly come into contact with different people and institutions through competitions and exchanges in various places to broaden their horizons.

Practice STEAM skills and build learning confidence

In addition to innovation and technology leadership training courses, the school also provides students with opportunities to practice STEAM skills and promote personal development through external cooperation. The school plans to "hold a science experiment training for primary school teachers" from the end of March to the beginning of April to conduct scientific experiment exchanges with primary school teachers, including experimental demonstrations in science subjects and STEAM. In this activity, students are arranged to receive training in advance and serve as teaching assistants. In the process, they teach primary school teachers and build their confidence. The relevant content is combined with the teaching content. It has participated in the HKU CITE IN-STEM program of the University of Hong Kong for many years, and won the SDL-STEAM Innovation and Technology Practice Excellence Award (Secondary School Group) and the Best Learning Design Platform Application Award, as well as the Most Popular Artificial Intelligence Course Award in the First Hong Kong Primary and Secondary Schools Innovation and Technology Achievement Award.

Overseas exchange competitions increase knowledge, build self-confidence and cultivate whole-person development

The school actively encourages students to participate in international activities and competitions to broaden their horizons and increase their knowledge. For example, they go to the Mainland, the United Kingdom, Thailand, South Korea and other places to participate in various competitions and exhibitions, and achieve remarkable achievements in the process. Students not only demonstrate their strength in local and overseas competitions, but also continue to improve in competition. In the recent MakeX competition, a student won the third place in Hong Kong in one of the awards, and represented Hong Kong in the world competition held in Shenzhen, and finally won the first place in Hong Kong in this award.

Competitions are an opportunity for students to showcase their talents, and they are also an experience to increase their knowledge. Regardless of winning or losing, they can accumulate valuable experience and understand the strength of talents in different places, thereby stimulating fighting spirit and self-confidence and promoting their continuous exploration and progress. At the same time, the school expands practical opportunities through cooperation with other institutions, including arranging students to participate in British exhibitions and being invited to Thailand and South Korea to communicate with local technology companies. Last year, the school was invited to attend the STEAM Leaders Summit in Thailand. Students communicated with professionals from well-known companies such as Google and Intel to share their experience in STEAM education in Hong Kong schools. Students benefited a lot from the event and further enhanced their knowledge and confidence.

Assistant Principal Zheng Lishun pointed out: "In the process, students need to communicate with people in public in English and even give live speeches. Therefore, promoting STEAM education drives students' whole-person development, including language skills, self-confidence and leadership skills." In addition, the school cooperates with exhibitors at large-scale exhibitions to allow students to participate in the application of humanities in the Yuanverse and students to participate in the development of gerontechnology. Students have the opportunity to participate in project promotion, enhance their understanding of STEAM technology and knowledge, and gain inspiration in leadership and teamwork. In the future, the school plans to conduct exchanges with sister schools in Zhuhai and take students to Shenzhen to learn about the latest developments in technology and further enrich their learning experience.

Promote interdisciplinary collaboration and teaching is highly recognized

"According to the current development trend, the scope of STEAM is getting wider and wider, and we hope to integrate STEAM teaching elements into different subjects." Zheng said that the school has set up a STEAM education committee to systematically promote cross-subject collaboration. In addition to science, biology, physics, chemistry and mathematics, visual arts, music and physical education are also arranged to cooperate with traditional STEM subjects. For example, the visual arts department participated in the production and exhibition of mechanical flowers at PolyU. In recent years, the school has been more actively cooperating with colleges and universities to conduct special studies in science, mathematics and computer subjects. In view of the school's vigorous promotion of relevant activities, last year the school won the Top Ten STEAM Schools, the Top Ten STEAM Teachers and the Information and Communications Technology Award for the High School Group in the 6th Greater Bay Area STEAM Excellence Awards 2024 (Hong Kong).