To begin with, one needs to know that STEM
stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. It is an acronym used in industry and by
educators and policy makers, who in recent years have called for initiatives to
increase the presence of STEM subjects in public education.
One metaphor that kept coming up is that of the
“leaky STEM pipeline”. Something that
looks a little like this:
Source: NCES Digest of Educational Statistics,
Science and Engineering Indicators, 2008.
The idea is that of the whole population of
students who start out in public school, only a very small percentage end up
graduating and entering a STEM field.
Two presentations that I attended had very different views on how STEM
subjects should be treated in schools.
Presentation 1: Beyond Subject ‘Silos” –
Looking Sideways
In presenting a paper co-written with Frank
Banks, David Barlex
of Brunel University in Australia notes that in schools, educational focus
looks like this: STEM, while in the real world the focus is more
like this: STEM. The first question he posed was: Do we
want/need elementary curriculum to match real-life skill needs? The second question posed, and the topic of
their research, was: Should it be S.T.E.M, where each subject is a separate
discipline, or STEM, where integration occurs.
The presenter suggested that subjects should
NOT be integrated, which is a different perspective than I am used to
hearing. His rationale for this was that
when we try to integrate the subjects, science always “wins”. He said that most
often technology isn’t taught, it is just used as “palliative care” for
difficult topics in science and math. He
also argued that it’s not possible to teach all disciplines in school, and STEM
topics (such as the E – Engineering) shouldn’t be afforded special
treatment. He used the example “we don’t
teach doctoring in school, so why would we teach engineering?” (Barlex, 2014)
to make his point.
In the end though, he didn’t call for keeping
these topics completely and totally separate in their own ‘silos’, but instead
suggested that teachers look sideways.
It is important to be aware of what is going on in other subjects, but
it is most important to be authentic in the tasks that we assign students and
not force integration.
Questions/Thoughts/Discussion/Implications
Why does Science ‘win’?
During
our discussions, my classmates and I believe that there are a few reasons for
this. Damien suggested that Science and
math are core curriculum subjects, and this makes them valued more by school
systems. Kathryn also pointed out that
it’s usually the Science teachers who are expected to do the integrating. I think Kathryn is bang on – particularly at
the elementary and middle school level, the subject taken by students is
Science, and the teacher is expected to integrate as much as possible. However, at the end of the day that outcomes
that need to be covered come from the Science curriculum, and that is what
teachers are trained in (how many elementary and middle school, and even high
school science teachers started out as engineers?) There is also the general belief that
technology and engineering are subtopics of Science. Barlex made a good point by quoting Fullen
(1991) - “educational change depends on what teachers do and think – it’s as
simple and complex as that”. Experts
theorizing is one thing, but the reality is that the biggest factor in STEM
education are the teachers, in the classrooms, who come from a variety of
backgrounds, and all have a unique belief about education.
For me the real take home message for teachers
is to respect task authenticity. Don’t
force math into a lesson because you can, do it because it makes sense. I believe part of the problem is the very high
number of outcomes we are supposed to have our students meet. This leaves very little time to do anything
interesting, or tangential, or completely un-related to the curriculum. Instead of keeping our students from having
these experiences, we creatively fit the curriculum in, to justify doing
it. I know I am guilty of that. It’s time to stop, and just be authentic and
let the students learn.
Presentation 2: Integrated STEM Education
Stephen
Petrina of the University of British Columbia, and Mark
Sanders of Virginia Tech presented a symposium argued that the quality of
experiences affect students, and integration provides experiences that
separated disciplines and courses cannot (Petrina, Sanders, and Volk,
2014). Integrated STEM education is for
all students, K-12, and requires all aspects of the activity to assess each
discipline, and be grade appropriate.
Sanders argued that an integrated approach doesn’t replace traditional,
subject specific instruction, but there are topics that can be better explored
through an integrated framework. He used
the example of asking students to design a paper airplane that remains aloft
for the maximum possible time. This
example, he says, is a really good one because it can be used at many different
grade levels, and can have each aspect of STEM be presented, discussed, and
assessed at grade-level. This is really
key – it’s only true Integrated STEM if each aspect is grade-level
appropriate. He also went on to say that
you could further enhance a project by integrating with other subjects (LA,
Social Studies). Sanders did point out
that there has not been a lot of research done to quantify the outcome of
Integrated STEM education on ‘plugging the leaks’ of the pipeline, although
this is a major topic seen around the conference this year.
Questions/Thoughts/Discussion/Implications
How do we make this practical and
feasible? At the primary level we have
generalist teachers who don’t all have a background in STEM, and may not feel
comfortable creating and guiding the kinds of projects which actually integrate
all STEM subjects. At the high school level,
how do we make this kind of large scale departmental coordination work?
Sanders referred to research showing a drop in
STEM interest in Grades 3-6 – where is this research from? In my experience intermediate kids find STEM
really interesting, although they may not be thinking about career options yet.
I found this a really interesting presentation
to hear after Barlex’s argument to look sideways, but not integrate. Part of the problem is the T. Is technology a discipline in and of itself,
or is it just a tool? There doesn’t seem
to be a consensus on this in the STEM community, so it seems to come down to
the beliefs on the educators at work. I
wonder if the bigger question is – what is technology? We seem to forget about all of the
non-digital tools that we having been using in everyday life for thousands of
years now.
Examples of STEM Initiatives
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____________________________________________________________________________________________
Barlex,
D. (2014, July). Beyond
the subject silos in STEM – The case for ‘looking sidewasys’ in the secondary
school curriculum. Paper presented
at the 3rd International Conference of STEM in Education, Vancouver,
BC.
Petrina, S., Sanders, M., & Volk, K. (2014, July). Integrative STEM and the education
pipeline. In S. Petrina (Chair), Integrative STEM and the educational
pipeline. Symposium conducted at the
3rd International Conference of STEM in Education, Vancouver, BC.
