Transcript Creating World-Class K-12 STEM Education: National, State, and Local Trends

The Leadership Challenge
Creating World-Class K-12 STEM Education:
National, State, and Local Trends
James L. Gentilucci, Ph.D.
California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo
The World is Flattening…
“If I take the revenue in January and look again in
December of that year, 90% of my December revenue
comes from products that were not there in January.”
-- Craig Barrett, Chairman of Intel, 2007
The Jobless Future?
WhyShifting
21st Century
Skills?
Job Market
20th Century
21st Century
1 – 2 Jobs
10 – 15 Jobs
Job
Requirement:
Mastery of
One Field
Critical Thinking
Across
Disciplines
Teaching
Model:
Subject
Matter
Mastery
Integration of 21st
Century Skills into
Subject Matter
Mastery
Assessment
Model:
Subject
Matter
Mastery
Integration of 21st
Century Skills into
Subject Matter
Mastery
Number of
Jobs:
Courtesy of Linda Froschauer
The Challenges
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“Our country appears to have lost sight of the importance of
scientific literacy for our citizens, and it has become increasingly
reliant on international students and workers to fuel our
knowledge economy."
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“In 1970, the United States produced more than 50 percent of
the world’s science and engineering doctorates. If current
trends continue, by 2010 the U.S. will produce only about 15
percent of the world’s science and engineering PhDs.”
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“Eighty percent of K-5 teachers report spending less than 60
minutes each week on science, and 16% of teachers are
spending no time at all on science.”
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It will not be possible for the United States to sustain a first-class
economy with a second-class workforce.
Two Premises from Jay Labov, National
Academy of Sciences:
Premise 1:
Improving STEM Education is
Not Rocket Science
It’s a LOT harder!
Premise 2:
“A good hockey player plays where the puck is.
“A great hockey player plays where the puck is
going to be.”
The “Big” Question…
Where is the puck
likely to be in the
next 50 years?
National Policy Response:
What are the Problems?
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National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of
Engineering sponsored a Convocation in April 2009 on Sustaining
Effective Science Education Programs for Grades K-8
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Many indicators point to severe weaknesses in California’s science
education systems at the kindergarten through eighth grade (K-8)
levels:
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K-8 students in California spend too little time studying science;
Many of their teachers are not well prepared in the subject;
The support system for science instruction has deteriorated;
A proliferation of overly detailed standards and poorly conceived
assessments has trivialized science education.
National Policy Response:
What are Possible Solutions?
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Four “Big Ideas” Emerged from the Convocation:
1.
Mandate Instructional Time for Science in Grades K-8
2.
Develop “Targeted” Professional Development for
Teachers
3.
Switch to National Science Standards and Assessment
4.
Improve Public Perception of Science and Science
Careers
NPR: Change Emphases in
STEM Education
Treating all students alike and responding
to the group as a whole.
Understanding and responding to individual
students’ interests, strengths, and needs.
Rigidly following curriculum.
Selecting and adapting curriculum.
Focusing on acquisition of information.
Focusing on student understanding and
use of scientific knowledge, ideas, and
inquiry processes.
Presenting scientific knowledge through
lecture, text & demonstration.
Guiding students in active and extended
scientific inquiry.
Asking for recitation of acquired
knowledge.
Providing opportunities for scientific
discussion and debate among students.
Testing students for factual information at
the end of the unit or chapter.
Continuously assessing student
understanding.
Maintaining responsibility and authority.
Sharing responsibility for learning with
students.
Supporting competition.
Supporting a classroom community with
cooperation, shared responsibility, and
respect.
Working alone.
Working with other teachers to enhance the
science program.
National and State Policy Response
Increase the Supply of Highly Qualified STEM Teachers
Lack of Organizational Capacity
for STEM Education Leads to …
Creating Systemic and Sustainable
Organizational Capacity for STEM
Education
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Systemic capacity is a rich web of intellectual and material resources
that supports bottom-up instructional improvement efforts. The
development of systemic capacity is driven by strong leadership, clear
and compelling vision, coherent policies and procedures, and
cultural norms that focus on improving student learning.
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Sustainable capacity endures over time, its innovative features and
resource supports do not disappear when people and politics
change and, most important, it becomes part of the cultural fabric of
the organization.
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What’s Missing from Current Reform Efforts to Create Systemic
and Sustainable Capacity?
Leaders: The Missing Piece
School Leaders Are Key
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Most STEM reform literature either ignores or only tangentially addresses
the role of school leaders, devoting instead the lion’s share of attention to
preparing highly qualified STEM teachers.
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This is problematic because superintendent and principal leadership have
significant influence on the development and maintenance of systemic and
sustainable instructional capacity within the organization.
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Efforts to reform STEM education have little chance of effecting long-term
change without the leadership of site- and district-level administrators because
they are organizational gatekeepers—what matters to them gets done.
Local Policy Response
Findings from Proceedings 2009
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Work to develop a shared vision of excellence in STEM education;
Communicate through word and deed that science, mathematics, engineering,
and technology education are curricular priorities for everyone in the
organization;
Advocate for political support (including resources) with school boards, parent
groups, and community members;
Model the value of STEM education for students by participating in laboratory
experiences or by teaching a STEM course;
Provide material resources (e.g., equipment, building space, money);
Adapt daily schedules to accommodate hands-on laboratory time for students;
Implement a program of targeted and ongoing teacher professional
development to build STEM content and pedagogical expertise within the
organization;
Develop strategic partnerships with STEM-focused businesses and industries to
bring knowledge, expertise, opportunities, and resources to the organization;
Monitor, measure, and report program outcomes to ensure students receive
maximum benefit from the capacity;
Communicate, communicate, and communicate the successes of the program
at every opportunity!
Some Closing Thoughts
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Instead of beginning (and, all too often, ending) efforts to
reform STEM education using test scores as our only
metric, we should begin by considering the kinds of minds
that we want to cultivate in our education system.
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My own reflections suggest that in the future, we need to
cultivate five kinds of minds if we want to be successful as a
nation and, more important, as a world. Those minds
include:
Students for the 21st Century
• A Disciplined Mind
that can think well and appropriately in the major disciplines;
• A Synthesizing Mind
that can sift through a large amount of information, decide what is important,
and put it together in ways that make sense for oneself and for others;
• A Creative Mind
that can raise new questions, come up with novel solutions, think outside the
box;
• A Respectful Mind
that honors the differences among individuals and groups and tries to
understand them and work productively with them; and
• An Ethical Mind
that thinks beyond selfish interests about the kind of worker one aspires to be,
and the kind of citizen that one should be.
Howard Gardner, “Beyond the Herd Mentality: The Minds That We Truly Need in the Future.”
Ed Week, 9/14/05, http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2005/09/14/03gardner.h25.html