STEM, STEM Education, STEMmania - Virginia Tech

1 stem , stem education , stem mania By Mark Sanders I. n the 1990s, the national Science Foundation (NSF). A series of circumstances began using SMET as shorthand for science, math- ematics, engineering, and technology. When an NSF. has once more created an program officer complained that SMET sounded too much like smut, the stem acronym was born. As opportunity for technology recently as 2003, relatively few knew what it meant. Many that year asked if the stem education graduate program I. educators to develop and was beginning to envision had something to do with stem cell research. That was still very much the case in Fall 2005, implement new integrative when we the Technology education Program faculty at Virginia Tech launched our stem education graduate approaches to stem education program. 1 But when Americans learned the world was flat (Friedman, 2005), they quickly grew to believe China and championed by stem education India were on course to bypass America in the global econ- omy by outSTEM ming us.

2 Funding began to flow toward all reform doctrine over the past two things stem , and stem mania set in. Now, nearly everyone seems somewhat familiar with the stem acronym. decades. And yet, it remains a source of ambiguity. Technology edu- cators proudly lay claim to the T and E in stem . But so, too, do Career and Technical educators, who (in my home state, at least) seem to have claimed the E as their own. Most, even those in education , say stem when they should be saying stem education , overlooking that stem without education is a reference to the fields in which scientists, engineers, and mathematicians toil. Science, mathematics, and technology teachers are stem educators working in stem education . It's an important distinction. In addition, there is the common misconception that the T (for tech- nology) means computing, thereby distorting the intended meaning of the stem acronym.

3 Suffice it to say, stem is often an ambiguous acronym, even to those who employ it. The national Science Foundation knows what it means. For nearly two decades, NSF has used stem simply to refer to the four separate and distinct fields we know as science, technology, engineering, and/or mathematics. Yet, some 1. We added this as new graduate program at Virginia Tech, complementing our Technology education graduate program, which we have no intention of relinquishing. 20 The Te c hnolo gy Te ac her December/Januar y 2009. have suggested that stem education implies interaction A pedagogy we refer to as purposeful design and inquiry . among the stakeholders. It doesn't. For a century, science, (PD&I) is a seminal component of integrative stem educa- technology, engineering, and mathematics education have tion. PD&I pedagogy purposefully combines technological established and steadfastly defended their sovereign territo- design with scientific inquiry, engaging students or teams ries.

4 It will take a lot more than a four-letter word to bring of students in scientific inquiry situated in the context of them together. technological problem-solving a robust learning environ- ment. Over the past two decades of educational reform, For those reasons, I am skeptical when I hear stem educa- technology education has focused on technological design, tion used to imply something new and exciting in education . while science education has focused on inquiry. Following Upon close inspection, those practices usually appear sus- the PD&I approach, students envisioning and developing piciously like the status quo educational practices that have solutions to a design challenge might, for example, wish monopolized the landscape for a century. Pending evidence to test their ideas about various materials and designs, or to the contrary, I think of stem education as a reference the impact of external factors ( , air, water, temperature, to business as usual the universal practice in American friction, etc.)

5 Upon those materials and designs. In that schools of disconnected science, mathematics, and technol- way, authentic inquiry is embedded in the design challenge. ogy education a condition that many believe is no longer This is problem-based learning that purposefully situates serving America as well as it should/might. scientific inquiry and the application of mathematics in the context of technological designing/problem solving. Inquiry Introducing Integrative stem education of that sort rarely occurs in a technology education lab, and In Fall, 2007, we realized the acronym's ambiguities were technological design rarely occurs in the science classroom. inescapable, and thus retitled our new Graduate Program But in the world outside of schools, design and scientific Integrative stem education . That was important to us inquiry are routinely employed concurrently in the engi- because, from the onset, we intended the program to focus neering of solutions to real-world problems.

6 Squarely upon new integrative approaches to stem educa- tion and to investigate those new integrative approaches Many technology teachers are fond of saying they teach (Sanders, 2006; Sanders & Wells, 2005).2 Our notion of inte- science and math in their technology education programs. grative stem education includes approaches that explore In truth, it is exceedingly rare for a technology teacher to teaching and learning between/among any two or more of explicitly identify a specific science or mathematics concept the stem subject areas, and/or between a stem subject or process as a desired learning outcome and even rarer and one or more other school subjects. Just as technological for technology teachers to assess a science or mathematics endeavor, for example, cannot be separated from social and learning outcome. Technology education students might aesthetic contexts, neither should the study of technology be very well do some arithmetic or recognize a scientific prin- disconnected from the study of the social studies, arts, and ciple at play en route to completing a design challenge, but humanities.

7 Our Integrative stem education graduate pro- those design challenges are almost never conceived to pur- gram encourages and prepares stem educators, adminis- posefully teach a desired science or mathematics learning trators, and elementary educators to explore and implement outcome. Thought of in this way, the notion of purposeful integrative alternatives to traditional, disconnected stem design and inquiry represents a new frontier in education . education . a frontier toward which integrative stem education research and practice are targeted. Integrative stem education is not intended as a new stand- alone subject area in the schools accompanied by new 2. From the onset in 2005, Virginia Tech's Integrative stem Educa- integrative stem education licensure regulations, as some tion Graduate Program has offered the MAED, EdS, EdD, and might suspect.

8 Given the amount of content knowledge nec- PhD degree options. In Fall 2008, we added a 12 semester-hour essary to be an effective science, mathematics, or technol- Integrative stem education Graduate Certificate Program. All of ogy educator, it's very difficult to imagine a new teaching/. the Integrative stem education coursework was newly conceptu- licensure program that would prepare individual pre- and/. alized and developed explicitly for these new degree options, and or in-service teachers with sufficient science, mathematics, is available online. Programs in other universities will, increasingly, carry the stem education moniker. But to date, we are aware of and technology content expertise and the pedagogical no other programs graduate or undergraduate that focus spe- content knowledge to teach all three bodies of knowledge cifically upon integrative approaches to stem education .

9 Effectively. 21 The Te c hnolo gy Te ac her December/Januar y 2009. Rather, Virginia Tech's Integrative stem education gradu- Why Integrative stem education ? ate program offers a new body of knowledge for current and Conventional stem education Leaves too Many preservice stem educators, introducing them to the foun- Students Behind dations, pedagogies, curriculum , research, and contempo- rary issues of each of the stem education disciplines, and The fact that each of the four stem education communities to new integrative ideas, approaches, instructional materials, has engaged in massive and ongoing educational reform and curriculum . In doing so, the program prepares/enables efforts over the past 20 years ( , AAAS, 1989, 1993; ABET, them to better understand and integrate complementary 2000; ITEA, 1996, 2000; NCTM 1989, 2000; NRC, 1996) is content and process from stem disciplines other than their convincing evidence of the serious stem education chal- own.

10 Integrative stem education is implemented in various lenges to be addressed. The stem education establishment ways. In some cases, stem educators implement integrative has long believed stem education hasn't been working as approaches within their own stem courses/facilities. In well as it should, and has been toiling steadfastly to make some cases, stem educators begin working together across improvements. But instead of praising their successes, their disciplines in pairs or teams. In some cases, school public concern has escalated. In recent years, the stem . divisions are beginning to think about systemic changes to pipeline problem the decrease in the number of students stem education that incorporate integrative approaches to pursuing stem fields, particularly those from historically stem education . underrepresented populations has been widely publicized.