Camden Catholic High School is dedicated to the promotion of STEM skills and practices to spark a philosophical change in both teaching and learning. CCHS guides students to become leaders who solve problems and find success in future careers. The STEM mindset centers around collaboration, design thinking, and problem-based learning, an inquiry- and choice-driven approach that inspires students to process information at higher levels (Barell, 2006). Promoted skills such as problem solving, critical thinking, inquiry strategies, and reflection on practice lead to a deeper understanding of subject matter.

Learning is initiated by an authentic, ill-structured problem that has multiple or unknown goals, solution methods, and criteria for solving them. In PBL-based classes, students encounter the problem before learning occurs. This approach differs from traditional lecture-based educational practice where students are expected to “master” content before they ever confront a problem and attempt to apply the content to it. PBL has been demonstrated to promote student development of critical-thinking skills, problem-solving abilities, and communication skills (Duch et al., 2001). It also fosters collaboration and promotes life-long learning by providing opportunities for students to work in groups to find and evaluate resources 

CCHS encourages students to embrace design thinking. “Design and design thinking is vital to creativity and innovation and have become increasingly important in the current movement of developing and implementing integrated STEM education” (Li et al., 2019).  Design thinking promotes learners to investigate problems and create innovative solutions that are tested and prototyped (Vande Zande, 2010).