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Helping STEM Grow
One of the endless parade of edu-acronyms is STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics), otherwise known as “stuff with numbers”. Everyone agrees that STEM is important; almost no one has figured out how to help more kids do better at it. One person making a difference on that front is U of M professor Gillian Roehrig.
Roehrig, the focus of a recent MinnPost profile that you should read in full if you haven't yet done so, has put a lot of energy into STEM education at the 10,000-foot level (she helped develop Minnesota's science standards) and at ground level (she's helped develop and implement summer science programs for kids on the White Earth reservation in northwestern Minnesota).
A strong believer in cross-pollinating STEM concepts between classes, Roehrig has also done exemplary work involving communities in the advancement of STEM education that's more meaningful to kids. Much of traditional science and math education was developed by science and math enthusiasts for science and math enthusiasts. Now that we're trying to expand STEM's appeal beyond its historical demographic, we need to consider a blend of traditional and newer routes to learning.
At White Earth, Roehrig spent time becoming familiar with the community before jumping in to push the new science programming. She involved community leaders in the creation and delivery of key concepts and framed those concepts around experiences that would be familiar to kids.
This isn't just touchy-feely pablum, however. MinnPost quotes Roehrig as saying, “Fun can overtake the learning if you are not careful.... You've got to make sure [kids] know why they are doing what they are doing.”
A strong focus on context-based, experiential learning around a solid core of interdisciplinary content is rare and significant. We would all do well to remember the amount of hard work and local awareness it takes to develop a truly effective approach to learning. At the end of the day, education is about more than federal, state, or local policies. It's about good educators working hard to do right by their students. It's worth taking some time to celebrate when that happens.
Posted in Education | Related Topics: K-12 education Classroom Methods
2 Comments
February 8, 2012 at 8:39 am
U of M Summer science program has been very good in expand kids’ interest in science knowledge.
We also should advocate and encourage all middle and high schools to sign up for science olympiad activities, which can win national competition. Now only some schools attend this event. For south metro districts, as far as I know, only Apple Valley, Lakeville school districts are actively involved in the activities, even represent state of MN to the national several times in the past years.
We learned Edina district not attending, which is very surprising. Edian district always be regarded as one of best districts in the state.
To encourage kids to involve in more science activities that can broaden their knowledge and promote their interest in science areas.
W. D. (Bill) Hamm says:
February 9, 2012 at 10:12 am
The problem here is the whole notion of “Top Down” standards. Under the old sytem, the one that made us an educational leader, curricula started proving it’s validity from the bottom up via competition. Back then the state set a grade level expectation that allowed schools to experiment with different knoledge based curricula to achieve that expectation. Now with the top down standards comes psycology based curricula that has never proven itself at any cometative level. Making the education system more difficult has not resulted in anything but the most racist and socio economical biased education system Minnesota has ever seen. So much for your Socialist top down approach, it is long past time to return to people controled local decision making rather than this ignorant, Teachers Union controled, elitist garbage we are stuck with now.