Ravenscroft's upcoming schedule change for the 2015-2016 will provide students with additional opportunities to take electives that include six different STEM+ courses: DigitalRavens; Middle School Engineering; RavensNews; Science Olympiad; Think It! Design It! Make It!; and Video Editing. The creative elements of the STEM+ courses align well with the Middle School's overall focus on Project Based Learning.

"We called our program STEM+ because it's not limited to STEM. It's all going to require the kind of thinking that you see in a design or an engineering process," Head of Middle School Denise Colpitts said. "I think we can feel good about that. For years we didn't label offerings as STEM because it wasn't the pure definition of the term. It's a little different angle on it now."

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education seeks to address a growing need for qualified candidates for high-tech jobs. In its purest form, STEM focuses on a curriculum that integrates each individual element rather than teaching the subjects in isolation. Ravenscroft's STEM+ courses integrate several elements at once but do not require that all four elements be present at the same time in every offering.

The growth of STEM+ courses at the Middle School level reflects an effort to capture students at an age when they are more willing to engage with the subject matter and thereby develop confidence in their abilities that will carry over into the Upper School and beyond.

"It's easier to have that growth mindset at Middle School than it is if you wait until Upper School," Colpitts said. "Some students may be turned off by the word engineering, but if we expose them to the concepts and they have positive experiences they will see that it's accessible to them."

The Middle School's new Makerspace will help foster student creativity and innovation in the STEM+ courses. The Maker Education Initiative's "Makerspace Playbook" defines Makerspaces as "gathering points where communities of new and experienced makers connect to work on real and personally meaningful projects, informed by helpful mentors and expertise, using new technologies and traditional tools."

Faculty and students have had open access to the Makerspace this school year. For example, sixth-grade students used the room as part of a math assignment that correlated with their narrative non-fiction work about the Titanic in Literacy and Communication. The math assignment challenged the students to build something that would fit through the door and that used the proper proportions.

"The next level is what do you do with those," Colpitts said. "We want to make sure they don't just sit on a shelf. You make them and then you present them."

Next year's STEM+ offerings will utilize the Makerspace more deliberately as part of the course work. For example, students in Think It! Design It! Make It! will work both independently and in groups to design, create, and make inventions of their choosing.

"We want to plant those seeds that this is for you. You can do this, too," Colpitts said. "Whether it's a career path or just a chance to be creative, we want our kids to have more opportunities to have ownership and to be creative. They can think about what they want to create and what problem they want to solve."