[Catalist] STEM - no philosophy, no definition, but a set of opportunities nonetheless

Thu Oct 5 22:05:16 AEDT 2017

Roy and Graham,

I was recently at a conference were a couple of US educators took it to a whole new level, try ISSTEAMM; Innovation, Science, Space, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics and Medicine... anyone left?

I guess this is one way to ensure you have got it all covered for grant submissions!

Regards,

Mark Gargano
Curriculum Coordinator (Teaching and Learning)
Years 7 to 12
St Joseph's School
Northam WA 6401

On 5 Oct 2017, at 6:48 pm, gpmcmahon1 <gpmcmahon1 at gmail.com<mailto:gpmcmahon1 at gmail.com>> wrote:

Roy - you mention STEM being presented as STEAM in some schools. I have also come across STREAM. Guess what the R stands for!

Sent from my Samsung GALAXY S5

-------- Original message --------
From: Roy Skinner <rsskinner at optusnet.com.au<mailto:rsskinner at optusnet.com.au>>
Date: 5/10/2017 6:01 PM (GMT+08:00)
To: leon at quoll.com<mailto:leon at quoll.com>, catalist at lists.stawa.net<mailto:catalist at lists.stawa.net>
Subject: Re: [Catalist] STEM - no philosophy, no definition, but a set of opportunities nonetheless

In UK they have been serious about STE M since before I left in 1987. I saw students in schools linked with professional engineers to complete real projects on site. For instance, as a school project, worth curricular marks, one group of students designed an improvement of a valve system to operate at the bottom of the sea for a gas rig. They eventually had it installed and it worked. Every student in this Technology class had an engineer as a consultant and the engineering society were happy to give their time for liaison. I saw the same CREST system operating in New Zealand with projects even sponsored by BMW.
Years ago I also did a link project with Clough Engineering where some of my students went to the Kewdale plant to take on a problem-solving project in a world first pilot plant focusing on the extraction of titanium from aluminium ore for a CREST project which eventually gained them a silver medal from CSIRO.
But who in Perth encouraged me and where did it go?
If it had been a project on Footy I would have got sponsorship I think. I also notice that one school in Perth is advertising the STEM focus to STEAM so as to include the Arts which kind of waters down the emphasis. I suspect with so little input from the Government it will all fizzle out and we will continue to import technological innovations from other countries.
What needs to happen is to change the syllabus in science to include electronics for instance (as in Victoria) and to allow students-centred practical projects which involve creative thinking and open-ended projects. In y last year at Murdoch College two of my students presented their Biological Battery at an international alternative energy conference of scientists and then went on to win a Gold CREST award from CSIRO and made TV appearances on New Inventors. This is how to develop STEM but these projects must be allowed to gain marks in conventional subjects. Creativity and innovation must be rewarded. Investigations where students calculate correct values for g just don’t do it!
Roy

From: Catalist [mailto:catalist-bounces at lists.stawa.net] On Behalf Of Leon Harris
Sent: Wednesday, 4 October 2017 12:04 PM
To: catalist at lists.stawa.net<mailto:catalist at lists.stawa.net>
Subject: Re: [Catalist] STEM - no philosophy, no definition, but a set of opportunities nonetheless

It is an interesting document - more of a wish list than a business plan. I would say that its is operationally close to useless because it doesn't focus much on mechanism.

For example, consider their infographic on page 7. It is just a collection of platitudes! Note the overlap in jurisdiction: teacher school partnership. It looks lovely! What sort structures do you suggest to allocate responsibility, power time and say to make that happen? My experience of outside agencies coming into schools is that they need a lot of hand holding or else they fall over, and that they are often off the point. That is their advantage, that difference in view, but so often there is a lot of shimming up, repairing and shoe horning needed by the classroom teacher to get value out of the interaction.

I guess what I am mostly reacting to is the vagueness, the motherhood and apple pie kind of approach to all of this STEM, coupled with the knowledge that at the end of the day my classroom teacher fellows and I will be held responsible for any system-wide failure to plan or provision for all of this.

Final point: your opening remarks suggested that this report was not widely known in secondary school, and implies a failure in such schools. I would make the point that the producers of said report have done insufficient that is effective in getting it out there. In other words, it is a failure to communicate effectively, rather than a failure of SS teachers and administrators to pick it up. I sense, that if STEM ends up all going wrong, it will be the coalface and not the think tank that cops the blame for it!

That, of course, would be counter-productive!

Cheers,
Leon

On 4/10/2017 11:17 AM, Kim FLINTOFF wrote:
There was a fairly comprehensive document released by the Education Council about 2 years ago that is often unknown to those in classrooms for some reason:

http://www.educationcouncil.edu.au/site/DefaultSite/filesystem/documents/National%20STEM%20School%20Education%20Strategy.pdf

Page 5 highlights that STEM is not a single “thing” to be taught:

STEM education is a term used to refer collectively to the teaching of the disciplines within its umbrella – science, technology, engineering and mathematics – and also to a cross-disciplinary approach to teaching that increases student interest in STEM-related fields and improves students’ problem solving and critical analysis skills. STEM sits within a broader foundational knowledge base and the teaching of STEM is a part, albeit important, of a balanced program of learning.

A "balanced program" provides relevance and caters for personal interests – ther greatest opportunity we have is in the explanation of Goal 1:

Schools have the opportunity to foster and nurture

young people’s curiosity towards STEM, and can use

this to develop deeper engagement and learning.

The secondary school flow on is stated as a supplementary goal:

While the primary aim of the national strategy

is to support all young people to become more

STEM capable, a supplementary goal is to increase

participation in challenging STEM subjects in the

senior secondary years.

Schools are ust supposed to be PART of the strategy:

Schools form a critical part of a broader STEM

education ecosystem

And that others need to be involved:

STEM cannot be achieved by schools

alone. Parents and the broader community, industry

and the tertiary education sector are key STEM

education partners.

That is part of the rationale of the development of our Learning Futures Network<http://www.learningfuturesnetwork.org/>.

The strategy document also provides some clear statements about the 5 action areas and points to these high order principles for school education:

[cid:B4055CEC-587D-4691-BC3E-526DA107AF32]

High level discussions in staff rooms, and other places are required to make sure that local relevance, priorities and individual differences are factroed into each context.  Its not surprising for the ambiguities between contexts to complicate discussions – complicated discussions are necessary; the absolute worst we can do at this time is try to reduce this to some new standardised model.

Cheers

Kim Flintoff
Pronoun: it, it, its
BA, Grad Dip Ed, M.Ed, MACE, MACEL
(AUC, AARE, AAEEBL, HETL, ISOC, AoIR, ISSOTL, ISTE, WAIER, PIE, HEVGA, ECAWA, IFORE)
Learning Futures Advisor      | Curtin Learning and Teaching
Manager, Innovation Studio     | Office of the DVC, Academic
Academic Coordinator, ACES (Achievement Centred Engagement for Students)
National Coordinator, UNEP-DHI Eco Challenge Australia
Joint Academic Lead, Education Theme | Curtin Institute for Computation
Coordinator, Learning Futures Network

Member, AU Technology Outlook Panel of Experts | NMC Horizon Project 2016
Sustainable Development Chair | Global Collaboration PLN | International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)
Advisory Board Member | Future-U

Office |105 Level 1
Tel | +61 8 9266 2194 (VMB only – email preferred)

Email | k.flintoff at curtin.edu.au<applewebdata://C13CAD3F-19C9-4975-BA55-F6C4FEA0B4CD/k.flintoff@curtin.edu.au>
Web | http://curtin.academia.edu/Flintoff
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