Brainstorming about STEM

In our daily discussion group, a Teacher Leaders Network member wrote:

I have been asked to represent the voice of the teacher leader on an international panel next week. We’ll be considering steps that might be taken to strengthen the pipeline from our classrooms to careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) occupations.

I would like to bring your thoughts with me. Why do you think more students don't choose STEM pathways in high school and college? What are the systemic issues you see that keep students from moving into STEM courses and careers? What suggestions would you have for improving this?

Shannon, a Milken award winning chemistry teacher in the Midwest, responded:

I have done countless interviews with students trying to figure this out so that we might change our high school courses to make students persist through the first few years of college-level math and science.

There is a consistent thread that indicates a huge mismatch in the level of rigor and the level of homework expected at high school and that expected at college. Students who take the top math and science courses at their high school enter college intending to pursue STEM majors. They find the going rough, decide they were ill prepared by their high school courses, and change their majors.

Successful high school students learn the material for the test but have difficulty transferring the information later, when it is connected at the next levels of learning. Reason? Their high school courses  are way too bloated with content (good for the test), and they do not spend sufficient time on big ideas and the connections between and among these ideas (bad for persistence in college).

Across the board, the students said that in high school they did little homework and seldom read the text -- since the teacher could usually be talked into covering that material in discussions and lectures. In college, the straightforward expectation that students will study without coaxing -- and the large amount of daily homework -- was a huge barrier for many students. And this barrier crops up early, in their first first college math and science classes. Many new college students need a course that conditions them to higher expectations and builds confidence. Instead, these early courses often weed them out -- especially when students compare the level of cognitive work required in math/science with the workload in the social sciences, where most learning occurs socially through discussions, current events, and application.

Also, if the students go to a college where the first two years are mostly theory and not much application, they often lose interest. They cannot see a clear path from where they are to the career they have imagined or desired.

Retired from the military, Mark is now a second-career science teacher on the East Coast. He replied:

This could be a great subject for a doctoral dissertation. The issue is very much a concern in the military and NASA. I’ve spent the past two summers working with a group that is trying to address this very question. From what I have seen it really comes down to the way public education is structured versus the way STEM knowledge and skills are actually used by scientists and engineers.

STEM occupations require an interdisciplinary approach to problems. In high school, we have "the Math Department" and "the Science Department." What we really need is "the Engineering and Research Department," where we would teach math and science as part of an integrated, application-oriented subject. Instead we have math and science courses where the topics are presented for the most part as established, immutable facts. Tests have one correct answer. Each course is taught as a stand-alone topic with little or no relation to other topics. With the standardized testing push, the emphasis on getting the single correct answer has become even greater.

I think the solution to the problem lies in the direction that Massachusetts has taken. They have developed standards for technology and engineering across the K-12 curriculum. These standards are separate from the Technical and Career Education strand (which, in many schools, is where most anything called engineering seems to end up -- also a part of the problem).

Until there are K-12 standards for technology and engineering there won't be any kind of push to make the curriculum changes necessary to allow for truly integrated, cross-disciplinary courses that would generate student interest in STEM fields.

Anthony, a secondary science coach on the West Coast, wrote:

Could it be that the demand for people with science and engineering degrees is far less than the media and industry leaders proclaim? There is a robust debate going on within the scientific community centering on this issue. I think it would be interesting to explore this debate a bit. One problem is that research money has declined over the last decade, as government money has flowed towards war and away from research.

I am a science educator, so I tend to be inclined towards those who would encourage young people to pursue this field. But then I hear stories of the many graduates who are having trouble finding work in their fields, and the intense competition for grants, and I wonder if we are doing the students a favor by directing them to these fields. By the same token, I sometimes wonder if four-year college degrees have been oversold, or at least the notion that everyone must have such a degree in order to survive in the modern economy.

In a column in Business Week last fall, titled The Science Education Myth, Harvard and Duke University scholar (and tech entrepreneur) Vivek Wadhwa suggested there is actually an oversupply of engineers for the jobs available. Citing a 2007 report from the Urban Institute, he said the available data “disproves many confident pronouncements about the alleged weaknesses and failures of the U.S. education system.”

Others disagree, of course. Here’s an account of views expressed at a Graduate STEM Education Roundtable sponsored by the President’s Office of Science and Technology Policy. And Education Week devoted its 2008 Technology Counts report to STEM-related stories.

Amy, a winner of state and national middle grades science teaching awards, wrote:

Here are a couple of thoughts based on my time in the classroom and as an Einstein Fellow on Capitol Hill. The time spent teaching science in elementary school and some middle schools has been greatly reduced since 2001, as an unintended consequence of NCLB. Since state testing in science (as with social studies and many other subjects) did not count towards schools’ all important Adequate Yearly Progress rating, classes were cut as reading and math took up more of the school day.

Students are now reaching high school without a rich science background or have lost their natural interest in scientific inquiry as other interests develop. Without these building blocks, science may be difficult and high schools may be playing catch-up on the basics. Students go off to college without the skills they need to be successful in the hard sciences.

Common feedback that I heard while in DC is that many college students find science/math to be “too hard.” Many also do not know the job potentials that are possible with STEM majors. So they choose majors they find to be easier.

My opinion is if we expect to build the STEM pipeline, science and math need to be taught well in elementary and middle school, when students are still excited about learning new things. High school is too late to try and get students hooked. Students need to know before they enter high school that they should take all of the math, science and engineering courses they can in order to build background knowledge that will serve them well in whatever they finally decide to major in.

Susie, a veteran teacher in the Midwest, has a long memory:

It's not just NCLB that has diminished science teaching in elementary; it's been woeful for years. As a middle school science teacher for 23 years pre-NCLB, I found that many elementary teachers felt ill-prepared to teach it (many of them having had little more than one methods class), had trouble obtaining materials due to time or money constraints, or felt other priorities were more pressing. Science is a tested subject in our state (grades 5 & 7), so it actually receives more emphasis now.

Beginning in 2007-2008, all states are now required by NCLB to test students in science, but states are not required to include science assessments as part of the formula for determining AYP. Anthony commented:

As a science teacher, I am not comforted by the fact that science will be tested more under NCLB. While that may lead to a bit more emphasis on science subject matter, I do not think it will improve real understanding in science. That is because I feel the most profound understanding of science comes when one understands the mental framework science gives us.

Science is like history in this regard. Real history is not merely the fact that Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the United States. Real history is the ability to review original documents and sources of information and extract understandings of the past. A real historian is able to analyze the past, to interrogate source material and figure out what different forces were at play. Real science is similar. We are working with evidence, and sometimes conducting experiments to create new evidence, to answer questions we have about the natural world.

Of course a big part of science is understanding what others have discovered before us. But the vitality of science is in the exploration of the new, of our ability to pose new questions that lead to new discoveries. This rich kind of science learning is very hard to fit in the tiny bubbles on a multiple choice test. It is certainly an indictment of NCLB that by “counting” only math and language arts test results, it has ignored science and history (and other important subjects). However, I believe that the way knowledge and skills are measured is equally important, and thus I do not believe science educators should be celebrating the inclusion of science in these high-stakes tests.

Rick, an English and science teacher, replied:

But as you say, Anthony, it’s a start. It puts science on the radar scope. To never be a part of the conversation means to never start. Once in the testing arena, we can construct science assessments that truly assess those wonderful science skills and frameworks you promote.

You are right on with everything you say science is, but most other disciplines claim the same concerns about their subjects and tests. For example, does reciting parts of speech or verb conjugations help you write better? I believe they do not. Stephen King, William Zinsser, and many others who write about writing agree. Yet those are some of the indicators we use to decide if students are proficient in writing.

Unfortunately, testing formats usually result from what policymakers think is legally defensible and financially feasible to test, as well as some reference to what they remember testing was like when they were in school. I celebrate the addition of science to the testing world, but I agree with you that the most important aspects of science cannot be adequately assessed given our current testing formats. It just means we should step boldly forward and try to convince policy-makers to assess science correctly.

Marsha, a math and science teacher in a suburban middle school, closed out the conversation with her take on the STEM careers issue.

I find that STEM courses require a sense of maturity. I see this when I do the robotics unit with my 6th graders. They are thrilled that we are going to do robots, but the "fun" wears off a bit when I tell them that we'll be studying how changing gear ratios changes speed and/or distance. They thought they were going to play with the Legos (and we do have one day for “free exploration”--code word for play). But it's hard work building a robot, seeing the results of what you’ve built, thinking about how to fix it so it runs better, and then redesigning and rebuilding.

With the exception of the writing process, when I think about most of the work we do with students, I don't see tons of the “think, design, build, revise, retest, rebuild” cycle going on.

Yet STEM is all about that.

So from my vantage point, even high school may be early for students to always see the "fun" in that iterative process of learning. They may just want coursework that you can memorize, take the test, and be done with. STEM courses require more of a sense of perseverance than many kids have at that age.

It also seems to me that once they're a bit older, they begin to look beyond immediate gratification and to things that will sustain intellectual interest. I think that's why you'll see people become interested in engineering or the like when they enter college, but not at the high school level. I know that it wasn't until my own children had some substantive, hands-on lab experiences that they began to think about “stuff” rather than grades.

At least at the high schools around here, the push to take AP courses is huge. I wonder how many high schools are willing to really push the STEM courses (where you are much more likely to experience applied science) over AP biology, chemistry or physics? The culture sort of dictates otherwise.

My son had this experience with physics. Kids had to be able to weigh the advantages of taking a Tech Physics course, which lasted two years and included lots of hands-on learning at nearby engineering companies, against the wisdom of taking AP Physics. If students chose the Tech Physics course, they were sometimes teased that it was “Physics for Dummies” because they weren't getting the AP or honors credit. Yet most of the kids who choose the applied program end up with engineering aspirations in college. Some of my son's friends are even pursuing physics majors with engineering minors because the Tech Physics class gave them that conceptual AND real world knowledge.

Lastly, I wonder how much our counselors really know about STEM courses. At least where I teach, their expertise really lies in the typical college prep pathway. They don't talk about options much. Unless a college-bound kid really presses them or already knows about options, that kid is very likely to be led into honors and AP without much discussion. In my district the FACS, CAD and broadcast courses are amazing. Often they are overlooked because they fall far outside the normal college-prep thinking – and parents don't even know about them until it's too late to get into the sequence.

Counselors have a tough job, and I don't mean to imply that they channel kids away. But if you don't talk about the possibilities because either you don't have the information, the time, or the ability to meet with kids one-on-one, then students will follow the path of least resistance.

Actually, in my district, many of our high school STEM teachers have taken to "advertising" their courses near the time of registration. Not true advertising, of course, but they do put out information brochures and/or posters that inform kids about the STEM courses and where they can lead in terms of college and careers. It has helped spread the word, and I think more kids are finding out and enrolling.

Comments

[Teaching AP Chemistry]

Comparisons between participants and non-participants in supplemental instruction classes at San Francisco State University over a six-year period show positive impacts in terms of increased student performance and progression through subsequent courses in a sequence, despite the lower academic indicators of the supplemental instruction participants.