A recent Engineering and Design Research Education Summit stirred reflections on the directions of STEM education
There’s a movement afoot (again) in education: a surge toward STEM education. It is going to be all the more visible upon the much-anticipated release of the Next Generation Science Standards from developed by a partnership of the National Research Council, the National Science Teachers Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Achieve, Inc. As a STEM educator who thinks she may have been involved with STEM before the acronym was first used (not sure of that), I am excited to see such interest in this area. But I have my concerns, as well.
STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and math. Here, technology is meant in its broadest sense–the objects, systems, and ways of getting things done that include everything from a stone grinding tool to your favorite digital gadget. From my perspective as a grades K-8 curriculum developer, the phrase “STEM education” has implied that engineering and technological awareness are brought into the math and/or science experiences of students, or vice versa. For over a decade I have favored an approach that starts with an engineering challenge and leads, in a natural and authentic way, to questions and applications of math and science.
I discovered the potential power of this approach when I first started to use engineering design challenges in my work with the Museum of Science in Boston. At the time, I was working on a curriculum kit to help students learn about Leonardo da Vinci (a project that I never guessed would later lead to my first published book, Leonardo’s ABC, and, therefore, to my life as an author). Because da Vinci had sketched a design for a hoist mechanism, I challenged my group of inner city Boston students to design something—any device at all—to help lift a package of “art supplies” (a few weights) to the top of a “tower” (a tabletop). I provided lots of varied and useful materials, including gears, straws, string, tape, balloons, dowels, cups, and construction paper.
Students surprised me in delightful ways! Out of a group of 40 students and several teams, devices using various strategies emerged. Before we knew it, we were categorizing the designs into groups that correspond to types of simple machines. Without the formal word labels for these machines, students identified strategies that used gears, levers, and pulleys as distinct from each other. (We also had an entirely different approach—one balloon rocket, launched from the ground and attached to a guide wire!)
As you might expect, some of the specific designs within each approach worked better than others. Sometimes, this was apparently because students had misconceptions about how the materials or objects in their designs should work. Yet, all students seemed to have an appetite for continuing to improve their ideas, so there was an opportunity to explore and correct those misconceptions.
As I reflected on the entire experience, I came to realize that students had shown me their working theories about the natural world, without having to put these ideas into words first. This meant that we all had something to work from to help them better understand what was happening. Students had their concrete experience, and I had access to their ideas. I could now help students explore, frame, and further inquire into the way simple machines operate; I could enter into the formal, planned school curriculum in a way that would make sense to the learners and respond to their urgent desire for information.
The power of this experience inspired me. Only later–when the successful curricular materials research and development project Engineering is Elementary was founded and I joined the program soon after–did I begin to consider the importance of teaching engineering for engineering’s sake. I began to embrace design challenges for their potential to help teach not only about science and/or math, but also about technology and engineering.
Still more years later, I am beginning to have a few concerns. For example, I wonder whether using engineering challenges to launch science and math experiences will inadvertently give students the message that the only reason to study math and science is to serve a desire to manipulate the world around us. That would be a dangerous message. It’s still important to simply have a great math or a stunning science experience. For example, I hope that my book A Black Hole is NOT a Hole will be fully appreciated for the way in which it celebrates wonder and science—although there are, of course, connections to the other STEM fields. I cannot imagine telling the story of black holes without helping readers contend with huge numbers and the vast scale of the universe, or recognizing how a radio telescope and, later, X-ray telescopes, contributed to the discovery of black holes. But black hole science is the main thread of the story, and I hope that the science can be appreciated on its own terms.
I also am concerned that STEM is too quickly becoming a catch-all phrase, a buzzword for marketing programs so they seem current and on-the-mark, even if some may not be grounded in appropriate approaches to the content.
I am not alone in my enthusiasm-anxiety. At a recent P-12 Engineering and Design Education Research Summit held in Washington, DC, this mix of excitement and concern was palpable.
I hope to see the current STEM focus in education grow to its full potential to help empower students and teachers alike. Those of us involved in creating STEM experiences—and those in the position of shaping choices about what happens in classrooms and districts–have to be careful to be explicit about what it is that we are doing with each development. We need to be disciplined to examine whether and how integration is pursued in our teaching materials, and to consider and balance the underlying messages we are providing for learners. In these ways, we can ensure that wonderful STEM movement veers in the wrong direction.
Author of the acclaimed children's book 