Stem >> Browse Articles >> STEM Teaching Tips & Trends

Back to School with STEM

"STEM is not just about science, technology, engineering, and math as the name might imply. It is really about a skill set that crosses all the disciplines."

Featured Author:

Victoria Lovejoy

Victoria Lovejoy has been an administrator and educator for more than twenty years. She has worked at both public and private schools at grade levels ranging from Kindergarten through Junior College. Dr. Lovejoy has a BA in Biology, a Master's in Secondary Math and Science Education, and a doctorate degree in Education Technology from Pepperdine University.

Dr. Lovejoy is the new director of PODetc (Professional Online Development from the Educational Technology Community).

More articles from this author:

• The Reality of STEM in the Classroom

Summer is over and you are back for the first faculty meeting of the year. You’ve already exchanged pleasantries with your peers and the meeting is getting ready to start.

Your principal or Head of School starts the meeting by welcoming all of you to another “terrific” school year and starts off with the vision for the year.

“This year we will be focusing on the STEM initiatives!!!”

A collective albeit inaudibly psychic groan passes through the audience as you and your peers immediately think of your objections to another “latest, greatest” initiative.

“I just revised my curriculum last year; I don’t have time or energy for any more changes.”

“Is it too late to consider a nice quiet newspaper delivery route as a job?”

Your fearless leader continues, “STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and math.”

Now there are two groups of sighs in the audience. The English, foreign language, history, visual and performing arts, and PE teachers sit back and relax thinking they dodged a bullet for the year while the science and math teachers are wondering why they came back for another year of trial and tribulation!!!

Then the final thrust and parry is delivered, “ all of us will be working on these initiatives to prepare our students for the world outside our school walls.”

STEM Lesson Plans

 • Science
 • Technology
 • Math
 • Cross-Curriculum
 • Utilizing Technology
 • Worksheets

While it is unlikely this will be the greeting you receive at your first faculty meeting of the year, it is not unreasonable for all of us to gain an understanding of STEM and its implications. It is not news to most of us who follow education that colleges complain their entering students are not prepared for the rigors of college and businesses complain that college graduates are not prepared for the realities of the workplace. When I first entered teaching in the 1980s, there was a cry for more math and science teachers to “raise the bar” on the programs in order to prepare students for careers in math and science. Guess what? Overall, the United States is still not competitive in the average scores our students earn on global measurements of math and science ability. Furthermore, STEM focused jobs are increasingly being outsourced overseas to graduates of programs that are fully prepared to hit the ground running with the skills they need as soon as they enter the workforce. With our recent economic challenges, we cannot ignore that Americans are losing out on work opportunities because individuals in other countries are more qualified to take our jobs.

Before we go further, however, let me clarify that STEM is not just about science, technology, engineering, and math as the name might imply. It is really about a skill set that crosses all the disciplines and demands that teachers begin to actively collaborate and plan across departmental borders in order to provide authentic learning experiences. Several authors have written about life in the 21st century with a specific focus on the skill sets our students need to survive in a global economy. Tony Wagner (2008), author of The Global Achievement Gap, describes what he calls the seven survival skills for the 21st century. These are critical thinking and problem solving, collaboration across networks and leading by influence, agility and adaptability, initiative and entrepreneurialism, effective oral and written communication, accessing and analyzing information, and curiosity and imagination. “Being a lifelong learner and knowing how to access and analyze information, which is growing exponentially and is constantly changing, is far more important than rote learning of specific academic content” (Wagner, 2008, p. 257). The STEM initiatives are designed to encourage educators to move beyond the curricula to find application of content so as to nurture the ability of students to look at problems systemically from the roots up and find each level of cause and effect in the development of creative solutions.

While experts predict that careers in the future will have the most growth in these four areas, it does not mean that the responsibility for preparation falls to teachers in these disciplines. More critical than the basic content knowledge are the communication skills, the ability to think critically, the use of imagination and creativity in problem solving, and initiative. These are skills we should all foster through our courses and lessons. Now, more than ever, we need to pool our resources to design integrated and authentic experiences for our students that truly foster the development of skills they will use in their futures. I prefer to think of STEM as standing for Sustainable, Tangible, Engaging, and Meaningful.

With that perspective we can all find ways to focus on STEM.

• Sustainable – plan for the long haul and continue to improve as your lessons develop. This is not meant to be a one-time kind of thing, but rather an approach to teaching that can carry over to the real world.

• Tangible – Our lessons have to be something students can relate to and they need to produce authentic outcomes, not just an essay response on an exam.

• Engaging – Students need to take an active role in the process and truly interact with the material, concepts, and activities.

• Meaningful – Students need to make connections to their lives and their world. We cannot continue to read lessons from a text without putting it in a context that students can relate to.

As for the original meaning of STEM, these areas still relate to us all:

• Science is a way of thinking, asking and answering questions.

• Technology is a tool that gives us the information, connectivity, and productivity to complete globally.

• Engineering is the application of many concepts to a real world construct.

• Math is a means to look at data and evaluate results.

Can you honestly look at these learning principles and absolve yourself of any kind of responsibility or connection no matter what your field is? We all know that there a lot of things about our educational system that are not perfect and a lot that needs to be changed. In truth, many educators are doing an outstanding job facing the challenges and chipping away at the big problems. With STEM we can find a focus that is directed to identified needs and predictions for the future.

References:
Wagner, T. (2008). The Global Achievement Gap. New York: Basic Books.