Creating World-Class K-12 STEM Education:

National, State, and Local Trends

The Leadership Challenge

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?

20th Century 21st Century

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Why 21st Century Skills?Shifting J ob Market

Courtesy of Linda Froschauer

The Challenges

“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."

“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.”

“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.”

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!

“A good hockey player plays where the puck is.

“A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.”

Premise 2:

The “Big” Question…

Where is the puck likely to be in the next 50 years?

National Policy Response: What are the Problems?

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

Many indicators point to severe weaknesses in California’s science education systems at the kindergarten through eighth grade (K-8) levels:

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?

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

Working with other teachers to enhance the science program.

Working alone.

Supporting a classroom community with cooperation, shared responsibility, and respect.

Supporting competition.

Sharing responsibility for learning with students.

Maintaining responsibility and authority.

Continuously assessing student understanding.

Testing students for factual information at the end of the unit or chapter.

Providing opportunities for scientific discussion and debate among students.

Asking for recitation of acquired knowledge.

Guiding students in active and extended scientific inquiry.

Presenting scientific knowledge through lecture, text & demonstration.

Focusing on student understanding and use of scientific knowledge, ideas, and inquiry processes.

Focusing on acquisition of information.

Selecting and adapting curriculum.Rigidly following curriculum.

Understanding and responding to individual students’ interests, strengths, and needs.

Treating all students alike and responding to the group as a whole.

Working with other teachers to enhance the science program.

Working alone.

Supporting a classroom community with cooperation, shared responsibility, and respect.

Supporting competition.

Sharing responsibility for learning with students.

Maintaining responsibility and authority.

Continuously assessing student understanding.

Testing students for factual information at the end of the unit or chapter.

Providing opportunities for scientific discussion and debate among students.

Asking for recitation of acquired knowledge.

Guiding students in active and extended scientific inquiry.

Presenting scientific knowledge through lecture, text & demonstration.

Focusing on student understanding and use of scientific knowledge, ideas, and inquiry processes.

Focusing on acquisition of information.

Selecting and adapting curriculum.Rigidly following curriculum.

Understanding and responding to individual students’ interests, strengths, and needs.

Treating all students alike and responding to the group as a whole.

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

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.

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.

What’s Missing from Current Reform Efforts to Create Systemic and Sustainable Capacity?

Leaders: The Missing Piece

School Leaders Are Key

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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:

• A Disciplined Mind that can think well and appropriately in the major disciplines;

• A Synthesizing Mindthat 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

Students for the 21st Century