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STEM
ThE STEM jobS pErSpEcTivE
What is STEM? The answer depends on who you ask.
From the typical labor market perspective, STEM is
5 to 6 percent of jobs or approximately 8 million jobs
in the U.S. economy, according to the Department of
Labor. When it comes to jobs, the STEM acronym is
not very specific. Federal reports vary in definition of
STEM jobs; hence, there is no standard definition for
what constitutes a STEM job.
Typically, STEM jobs are defined by the Labor
Department as professional and technical support
occupations in the fields of computer science and
mathematics, engineering, and life and physical sci-
ences. The largest group of STEM jobs lies within the
computer and math fields, accounting for 46 percent
of all STEM employment. Second are engineering
and surveying occupations with one-third of STEM
employment. Thirteen percent of STEM jobs are in the
physical and life sciences, and 9 percent are manage-
ment occupations. These jobs are expected to grow by
1 million jobs by 2022, while contributing significantly
to economic wealth creation and national security.
Jobs that are not generally included in STEM in-
clude medical, education, accounting, social science,
high-skill technical (less than a four-year degree), and
commercial arts fields. A quandary for the National
Endowment for the Arts is that many professional arts-
based jobs contribute significantly to gross domestic
product and are associated with a high degree of STEM
knowledge. Yet arts-based professions—architects,
video game designers, special effects artists, video
postproduction editors, sound engineers, and digital
artists, among others—are generally not associated
with STEM.
With rare exceptions, middle-skill jobs, or jobs that
require at least a technical certificate or a two-year
technical degree, are not included in the federal defi-
nition of STEM jobs. By Brookings Institution esti-
mates, if technical high-skill jobs are counted as part
of STEM jobs, 20 percent of the American workforce
is employed in fields that require considerable STEM
knowledge. The irony is that many of the high-skill
jobs that require at least a two-year degree are tech-
nology-based jobs, while most states and metropolitan
service areas have a shortage of these workers.
K-12 STEM EducaTion pracTicE and ThE Way ahEad
Dominant practice in K-12 education in 2016
focuses on STEM as: (1) Math and science literacy; (2)
Technology as a tool for instruction; and, (3) Engi-
neering as informal education competitions, and in
some cases, a form of Career and Technical Education
(CTE). Over the past eight years, most states have
created STEM academies, professional development
centers, informal education competitions, and net-
works designed to improve instruction and academic
performance in science- and mathematics-related
subjects at secondary schools. The opportunity missed
for many STEM proponents is to connect college and
career readiness by integrating academics and CTE.
In this view, STEM and CTE integration present
an opportunity to enhance academic performance by
exposing students to rigorous studies across courses.
In 2011, Bill Symonds and colleagues at the Harvard
Graduate School made this argument to connect
career preparation and college preparation in the pub-
lication, Pathways to Prosperity: Meeting the Challenge
of Preparing Young Americans for the 21st Century. While
CTE has gained some momentum under the auspices
of STEM in pockets of innovation, CTE suffers from a
stigma associated with courses for students not headed
to college or university.
The National Science Teachers Association (NSTA)
has made excellent strides in defining the way ahead
for STEM. According to the NSTA, STEM is “an
integration of disciplines that removes the tradition-
al barriers among science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics and instead focuses on innovation
and the applied process of addressing questions and
designing solutions to complex contextual problems
using current tools and technologies.”
NSTA is ahead of post-secondary teachers in defin-
ing STEM in terms of interdisciplinary studies, solving
unstructured problems with no predetermined an-
swers, and innovation. This definition is ideal because
it creates a platform for integration of knowledge- and
skill-based instructional techniques—transcending
the tired debate between content and process in K-12
education.
Ever since the beginning of the Progressive ed-
ucation movement at the turn of the 20th century
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(rooted in John Dewey’s Laboratory Schools), the
debate between teaching and testing for factual recall
vs. procedural fluency has limited real and meaningful
progress related to increasing K-12 student retention,
performance, graduation, and matriculation. It is
time for education practitioners and policymakers to
transcend the progressive and conservative political
ideologies that effectively divide the worlds of classical
and contemporary education.
We are now witnessing an era of accelerating social,
political, and economic change driven by STEM. This
transformation of social institutions—from education
to work to family and individuality—creates a mandate
to prepare students for their future, rather than our
past. The history of education during the last period
of radical technology change, the Space Age, provides
some lessons for the way ahead.
innovaTion Through cLaSSicaL and
conTEMporary EducaTion
Since the fall of 2008, President Obama and his cab-
inet have trumpeted a “Sputnik Moment” to declare
that American innovation depends on increasing
STEM literacy in K-12 and post-secondary education.
While K-12 schools and students need to increase
STEM literacy, it is equally important to emphasize the
connection among STEM and non-STEM disciplines.
During the summer of 2008, I wrote an essay for the
National School Board Association, offering histori-
cal precedence for the need to connect classical and
contemporary learning subjects rather than focusing
on STEM alone to achieve innovation:
When our predecessors stood at the edge of the
world and gazed at Sputnik orbiting, they did not
respond with a narrow focus on science and technol-
ogy education. Brigadier Gen. Robert F. McDermott,
the founding dean of the U.S. Air Force Academy,
redefined military training and set a precedent for the
transformation of all military academies by connect-
ing the humanities and social science to STEM to
prepare leaders for the uncertainty of a high technol-
ogy world.
Based on his experience as a K-12 student at the
Boston Latin School (the oldest school in America),
McDermott designed the new Air Force Academy. The
academy’s success in preparing military officers would
later be the catalyst for changing all military service
academies—connecting classical and contemporary
education. The lesson here for K-12 education is that
a world characterized by increasing STEM complexity
requires expanding human development to include
a broad range of disciplines and subjects to enable
critical thinking, creativity, innovation, and ultimately
cultural sustainability.
A rapidly changing world also requires the con-
nection of knowledge-based and procedural-based
learning techniques. An historical example illustrat-
ing this lesson is found in David Thornburg’s STEM
Education: From Sputnik to the 22nd Century. According
to Thornburg, one of the key transformational meth-
ods of teaching in K-12 education during the Space
Age was the Eisenhower administration’s adoption of
the MIT Physical Sciences Study Committee (PSSC)
introductory courses in physics.
PSSC courses shifted physics education from rote
learning to learning by doing. The MIT Institute
Archives and Special Collections tells the story and
has reference examples online from the original text:
PSSC’s first edition of the new high school textbook,
Physics, appeared in 1960. The teacher’s guide explains
the shift in pedagogy engendered by this new approach
to teaching physics as a shift from “axiomatic” (self-ev-
ident truth) to “inductive” (using observation to move
from specific to broader conclusions) presentation of
the curriculum. Thornburg calls this form of instruc-
tion “inquiry-driven project-based learning.”
Similar to PSSC, modern K-12 STEM education
practice should teach STEM subjects by connecting
knowledge, process, and mentorship.
Doing science is important, according to Murat
Tanik from the University of Alabama at Birming-
ham and the Society for Design and Process Science,
because: “The scientific world-view simply says we
know very little and the little we know is subject to
change and not fully reliable. This little sentence took
thousands of years of human efforts to develop.”
The scientific thought process teaches a type of
thinking which has its roots in curiosity, skepticism,
and rationality. This process is necessary for early and
ongoing education of all students because it models
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STEM
5. april 2015 • asbj.com 5
thinking for understanding—naturally challenging
factual understanding with inquiry and dissent.
ThE cLaSSicaL conTEMporary ModEL
Today, our strategy for education, workforce, and
economic innovation requires an approach to K-12
education that helps students connect classical and
contemporary knowledge and tools to innovate. A
general model for classical contemporary education
includes:
• Using STEM as a contemporary bridge to connect
academic, arts, CTE, and health education in addi-
tion to specific specialized science and mathematics
studies (STEM and civics for example);
• Framing learning through inquiry-driven proj-
ect-based learning incorporating innovation and
failure as feedback to the learning process;
• Integrating CTE and academics to enhance learn-
ing outcomes for students by exposing rigor across
subjects;
• Teaching digital information and communications
technology (ICT) across the subjects and grades
(including programming, computational thinking,
and ICT as a transformative force in society);
• Including fine arts, performing arts, cultural arts,
and creativity as foundational and necessary to
school culture and outcomes;
• Delivering integrated programs of study connect-
ing K-12 subjects into coherent course sequences
dovetailing to post-secondary schools (community
college and university);
• Integrating professional development across faculty
communities of practice and subjects in addition to
specialized learning time; and,
• Cultivating a culture of innovation as fundamental
to education practice and student learning by engag-
ing teachers, students, and school stakeholders to
innovate from within—rather than only prescribing
solutions from the top down.
A movement toward this unification of classical and
contemporary education is demonstrated in pockets
of educational innovation practice today. Two schools
using the classical contemporary model across the
education spectrum are the String Theory Schools in
Philadelphia (stringtheoryschools.com) and the Clark
Magnet School in La Crescenta, California (clarkmag-
net.net).
The vital change we need to make in America is to
see STEM as two constituent parts that are fundamen-
tally dependent on all education subjects. STEM is a
force changing and shaping the individual and social
institutions (family, education, work, government,
etc.), and STEM is human design and the unintended
consequences of our design choices. STEM is not a
force outside of the individual acting on society. In the
end, we are the proponents of STEM and the resulting
world we live in. This is why STEM is so important
across the disciplines and subjects of education rather
than a specialized topic of interest to a small segment
of students and education practitioners.
Jim Brodie Brazell is a technology forecaster specializing
in science, technology, and society. Since 2004, he has
delivered keynote speeches and workshops on topics related
to innovation and change reaching approximately 50,000
education, workforce, and economic development practi-
tioners. Learn more about Brazell at www.ventureramp.com
or contact him at jim@armour.io.
STEM
feBruary 2016 • asbj 5
6. InsIde adam Burwell’s classroom at the
Barbara Morgan STEM Academy in Meridian, Idaho,
students construct catapults out of craft sticks and try
to figure out the most efficient way to sail cotton balls
across the room.
At this kindergarten through fifth grade school,
project-based learning is the norm, not the excep-
tion. Teachers answer questions with more questions.
Students post queries to classroom “wonder walls” and
try to figure out the answers. They learn the scientific
method in kindergarten, and they follow the WISE
way—Wonder, Investigate, Share, Extend.
“In traditional school, if they look at another’s work,
you are cheating,” says Burwell. “But not in the real
world. They have to learn from each other.
The 500-student Barbara Morgan Academy, now in
its third year, is named after the Idaho educator-turned
astronaut who traveled aboard Space Shuttle Endeavor
in 2007. (Read ASBJ’s profile of Morgan at http://bit.
ly/20GScSi.)
The academy is a magnet or school of choice in the
West Ada School District. Students who live in the
attendance area can automatically enroll in the STEM
program or transfer to another neighborhood school.
Other students apply to attend.
The school’s inquiry-based learning approach sets
it apart from traditional schools, says Principal Ryan
Wilhite.
“Kids are naturally curious, but they have to be
taught to persevere and see failures as opportunities.
Our goal is to give them lots of opportunities to fail.
It gets them to a point where, when they fail, they
say, “that’s interesting. Why didn’t it work?” then they
approach the problem from another angle.”
A common misperception about the academy
is that the children are academically advanced. In
fact, Wilhite says, students are from all ability levels,
including some who qualify for special education and
are English language learners. The school does not use
an advanced curriculum either, he says. “We teach the
district science curriculum.”
The academy has a dedicated STEM teacher Lynnea
Shafter, who works with classroom teachers to focus
instruction through a STEM lens.
The practice of having teachers answer questions
with questions was frustrating to students at first,
Shafter says. She noticed a shift during the second year.
“The kids ask, ‘What will we try now?’” she says.
“It’s really been neat to watch them evolve and perse-
vere through it.”
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Wonder Wall
Idaho elementary school uses an inquiry-based
learning approach through STEM
PhoToBYCADEMARTIN
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hIghland park mIddle school In
Beaverton, Oregon, has embraced the bold new
world of STEAM education or “Science and
Technology, interpreted through Engineering
and the Arts, based in Mathematical elements.”
Like STEM, STEAM encourages students to
work at problem solving, discovery, and explor-
atory learning, says David Nieslanik, principal
of the 900-student sixth- to eighth-grade school
in the Beaverton School District.
Highland Park is also one of seven schools
in the Portland Metro STEM Partnership, a
regional collaboration of public and private
organizations with a shared goal of transforming
science, technology, engineering, and mathe-
matics education for K-12 students.
In laying the ground work for STEM integra-
tion, the parent and staff site council concluded
that one of the school’s key assets—its strong
arts and humanities (language arts and social
students) teachers and programs—should not
be omitted.
“Once we made that decision, we began to
create with everything in mind. And that incor-
porated the arts,” Nieslanik says.
The ultimate goal, he says, is to integrate
the arts into the core classes so students can
see the connections across the different subject
areas and also use core concepts, such as critical
thinking, math problem-solving skills, and crit-
ical reading skills in the arts classes to support
that learning as well.
For example, this spring, eighth-graders
studying climate change in their science class
are also working with Wisdom of the Elders, a
Native American cultural awareness organiza-
tion, to learn about the arts, music and oral his-
tory of native peoples, and how climate change
has impacted their culture.
In another lesson, students studying the
challenges of climbing Mount Everest and the
Tibet and Nepal cultures, design a bridge, study
temperature, and design a coat that would help
them survive the elements.
In November, Highland Park was one of
eight schools from across the country recog-
Full STEaM ahead
An oregon middle school incorporates the arts into core classes
Michelle Healy
PhoToSCouRTESYofhIghlANDPARkMIDDlESChool/BEAvERToNSChoolDISTRICT
9. feBruary 2016 • asbj 9
Like STEM, STEAM encourages students to work at
problem solving, discovery, and exploratory learning.
nized for using the arts “to make STEM subjects
more accessible and engaging to students” and
“mutually strengthen arts and STEM learning.” The
award from the Ovation Foundation, the President’s
Committee on the Arts and Humanities, and Ameri-
cans for the Arts came with a $10,000 grant.
Nieslanik believes there are already measure-
able signs that STEM integration is impacting his
students’ learning.
He points to an annual assessment examining
academic resiliency that shows in three years the
percentage of students who said they stop attempt-
ing school work if they don’t understand it, won’t
ask questions, or aren’t engaged, dropped from 68
percent to 34 percent. And an assessment exam-
ining student happiness and connectedness with
the school showed improvement over the last four
years.
“In every classroom we’ve provided professional
development around critical thinking, questioning,
integration, and creating those partnerships across
curricular areas, so yes, I credit those improvements
to STEM,” says Nieslanik. “It’s been the key focus.”
Michelle Healy (mhealy@nsba.org) is ASBJ’s
staff writer.
STEM
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Manor new Tech high School eMphaSizeS
project-based learning with real world relevance to sup-
port its STEM curriculum. This way of learning provides
“an authentic context to STEM education and education
in general,” says interim principal Bobby Garcia. “A big
part of the success of this school , particularly with the
demographics we’ve got and the community that we
serve, is that we’ve been able to contextualize education
by giving the kids projects that they are interested in, that
affect their lives, and that they want to learn more about.”
As a classroom teacher, Garcia assigned an ethics
project to his engineering students that examined how
engineering and design decisions can and do fail and
the resulting consequences in dollars, legal actions, and,
sometimes, injuries and death.
The responsibility that engineers and designers have
to their users and clients really hit home with his stu-
dents, says Garcia.
Opened in 2007, Manor New Tech is part of the rap-
idly growing Manor Independent School District located
northeast of Austin, Texas. Two-thirds of the school’s
nearly 400 students come from families where they
would be the first generation to attend college. More than
50 percent qualify for free and reduced-price lunch, a rate
that has been has high as 65 percent in recent years.
“Giving all kids equal access and exposing them to
STEM education and the opportunities it can afford is a
big part of who we are,” says Garcia.
The school is one of 128 high schools in 26 states and
Australia that are part of the New Tech Network, a non-
profit that works with districts and schools to transform
education by emphasizing project-based learning, access
to technology, and developing a positive and empowering
school culture.
Applicants apply through a blind, non-selective lottery.
Academic history, discipline records and attendance are
not considered. Roughly half of currently enrolled stu-
dents are Hispanic and 20 percent are black, both groups
that are typically underrepresented in traditional high
school STEM programs and in STEM careers.
The school boasts a 99 percent graduation rate and
100 percent of seniors are accepted into a two- or four-
year college. The school’s direct-to-college enrollment
rate (percentage of college enrollment within 18 months
Context Matters
ATexas high school shows students relevance through STEM
Michelle Healy
11. feBruary 2016 • asbj 11
post-graduation) and its persistence rate
(percentage of degree completion within
six years) are upwards of 70 percent and 80
percent, respectively, exceeding national
averages.
“It’s not just that our kids are getting
accepted, they are going to college and
sticking with it,” Garcia says.
A key goal of a STEM educator, he
says, is providing students the opportunity
and the access to understand how STEM
professionals solve problems and how they
approach the world.
“If we can expose them to that, and
encourage their participation, especially
students who come from backgrounds that
don’t have a high level of representation,
then I will consider us successful.”
He stresses that building a school culture
that empowers students, as well as teachers,
is as important as project-based-learning
and the use of technology in his school’s
ability to offer a rigorous STEM curriculum
and supporting students to succeed.
“We pride ourselves on first having
strong relationships with students,” he
says. “By building those relationships, we
get to know our students better and can
design more relevant projects for them. If
they’re interested in what you’re doing and
they trust you, then it’s easy to bring in the
academic rigor.”
Michelle Healy (mhealy@nsba.org) is
ASBJ’s staff writer.
STEM
"Giving all kids equal access and exposing them to
STEM education and the opportunities it can afford
is a big part of who we are," says principal Bobby Garcia.
PhoToSCouRTESYofMANoRNEwTEChNologYhIghSChool/MANoRINDEPENDENTSChoolDISTRICT
12. when It fIrst opened In 2006,
Metro Early College High School was
tagged “the small STEM school with
the big footprint.” More than nine years
later, it’s a description the school still
proudly embraces.
“It’s quite an endearing term, one
we truly believe in and is based on the
tenets of who we are and why we are,”
says Anthony Alston, assistant principal.
Approximately 400 students from
throughout central Ohio attend the
public, independent school situated on
the edge of The Ohio State University
campus in Columbus. It was created
through a collaboration between the
Educational Council, a coalition of pub-
lic school districts in Franklin County,
Ohio; the Battelle Memorial Institute, a
nonprofit science and technology devel-
opment company; and The Ohio State
University.
Metro is a platform or model school
for the Ohio STEM Learning Network,
a public-private collaborative that helps
build and spread successful STEM
teaching and programs across the state
and the nation.
Central to Metro’s mission is provid-
ing a high quality, personalized, rigorous
STEM education with an emphasis on
learning outside school walls to students
from diverse backgrounds and levels of
academic preparation, says Alston. Thirty
percent of Metro’s enrollment is classi-
fied as economically disadvantaged; 13
percent have special education needs.
Admission is via lottery and is non-
selective; previous coursework and ac-
ademic performance is not considered.
Currently, students from 26 different
school districts in seven counties attend
with the largest number (typically half)
coming from Columbus City Schools.
The school’s accelerated curriculum
is built around hands-on, project-based
learning and emphasizes a mastery sys-
tem that requires a grade of 90 percent
or higher in a course to earn credit
“We want to ensure that student have
a deep understanding and grasp of the
curriculum,” Alston says, adding that
there are multiple opportunities for re-
mediation, re-teaching, and alternative
assignments to help students when they
have not yet mastered coursework.
Metro has a very flexible schedule
and committed staff that works ex-
tremely hard “to best meet the needs of
students,” he says.
Once students have successfully
earned mastery in the majority of their
12 asbj • feBruary 2016
Michelle Healy
highEr Ed juMpSTarT
An ohio high school mixes STEM with early college
STEM
core requirements, they transition to
a curriculum focused on early col-
lege access, internships, and research
opportunities. The curriculum is built
around a subject that they may want to
study in college or pursue as a career,
including health care, energy resources
and engineering. They must also give a
“Gateway” presentation defending their
readiness for college
Nearly half of the schools’ fourth-
year students are able to take a full-time
college course load (12 or more semes-
ter credits) enabling them to jumpstart
work toward a college degree.
Metro’s approach to STEM education
has been so successful that this academ-
ic year it opened the Metro Institute of
Technology. The five-year program offers
graduates options for an associate’s
degree, industry-certified credentials,
and certificates that will get them a head
start on a bachelor’s degree and or enter
the job market right out of high school.
And to better prepare future applicants
for the METRO high school experience,
the school recently launched the Metro
Early College Middle School.
Michelle Healy (mhealy@nsba.org) is
ASBJ’s staff writer.
PhoToSCouRTESYofMETRoEARlYCollEgEhIghSChool
