CREATING A ROBUST STEM PROGRAMDiscover the pillars for a solid STEM foundation

The way to improve your school’s STEM offerings, and boost the learning of all your students, is to combine commitment from leadership, effective professional learning, and high-quality resources. Ask any educator about the importance of STEM, and their head will start to nod up and down before you can even finish the question.

Everyone, from principals to teachers to parents, knows how important it is for students to learn the key skills needed to solve problems in today’s —and tomorrow’s — world. But ask the same people how to create a robust STEM program in their schools and you’re more likely to get a pause before an answer. It is, of course, much harder to align curriculum to support STEM, give teachers the tools they need, and provide the time to properly implement them than it is to recognize the need in the first place.

What school leaders and teachers need to know is that while making this transition is complex, there is a clear set of guidelines that can help. And for schools that go through the proper steps and lay the appropriate groundwork,

the resulting success can be deeply embedded and the benefits long lasting.

“It takes a while to change the way people understand the needs of the workforce and how to educate students,” says Hank Nourse, the director ofdigital content and instructional design for the New York Academy of Sciences. “Educators were taught in different ways [when they went to school],” he adds. “They had textbooks, lectures, and less group work. That’s not the way work is done these days. Jobs are cross disciplinary and collaborative, and often employ technology.”

Nourse says schools need to revamp education so that what students learn in school connects easily to how it is applied in the real world.

There are three keys successful schools and districts use to enhance STEM offerings:

1. Supportive leadership

2. Superior teacher training

3. Quality materials

Schools need to revamp education

so that what students learn in school connects

easily to how it is applied in the real

world.

1

Hank NourseDirector, Digital Content Strategy & Instructional DesignNew York Academy of Sciences

2

School and district leaders need to not only support STEM, but understand the benefits of STEM learning beyond acquiring disciplinary skills. Providing opportunities for students to collaborate and problem-solve sharpens capacities that students can use no matter what subjects they tackle or which jobs they eventually find. Learning to apply the critical thinking skills needed to address science, technology, engineering, and math challenges creates a framework that students can employ to address almost any problem they face.

Teacher learning is a vital part of creating a strong STEM program. When encouraging students to see problems in a transdisciplinary manner, schools must be sure to give teachers support outside their areas of specialty to foster this kind of learning. Then teachers can provide opportunities for students to apply these problem-solving skills across disciplines.

The last piece of this STEM puzzle is learning resources. Simply having students focus on knowing content and discrete facts no longer prepares students to face the kinds of problems they will encounter in their future. In their adult lives, students will use a variety of skills to problem-solve, and the best resources not only understand this but challenge the students to use all their knowledge and skills to tackle real-world problems. Materials that engage students in thoughtful work without locking them into just one right answer can ignite a child’s natural resourcefulness.

Creating the First STEM Certification ProgramThe New York Academy of Sciences (NYAS) has a new initiative aimed directly at helping teachers and administrators boost STEM learning at their schools. The Academy’s new STEM certification program carefully vets resources according to an exacting set of standards created by experts in STEM education. These approved materials give educators a ready-made list of STEM programs evaluated for their quality and relevance.

This program is only the latest in a series of initiatives at the New York Academy of Sciences, which is celebrating its 200th anniversary in 2017. The institution

is not only one of the oldest scientific organizations in the United States but is actively creating new programs to fit the changing needs of today’s society. Three years ago, it launched the Global STEM Alliance at the United Nations. This international endeavor signaled a shift by the Academy to extend its influence to a worldwide audience.

“Our ultimate goal is to increase the number and diversity of students pursuing STEM careers,” Nourse says. One program, 1000 Girls/1000 Futures, aims to keep female students engaged with STEM subjects and encourage them to pursue STEM careers. “Our goal is to reach one million students by 2020,” Nourse says.

The concept for creating a STEM certification program started when the group was evaluating its educational offerings. “We’re often asked by organizations around the world to recommend programs, resources, and best practices,” Nourse says. “We had no formal way to provide that guidance.”

Leveraging its network of experts, the Academy established a blueprint schools can follow to create a quality STEM program, including aligning their STEM offerings to current workforce needs and ensuring that students, staff, and the community recognize the importance of STEM skills from a young age.

Recognizing the Importance of STEM Skills“Teaching science to the very young, in the early education years, helps ground them in thinking scientifically,” says Tim Oates, the group director of assessment research and development at Cambridge Assessment.

This includes promoting STEM work in many fields and making sure students value not just college but also technical and vocational training programs. Districts also must boost their recruitment of teachers who are comfortable handling STEM subjects.

Other countries have embraced this ideal by creating new programs. For instance, Vietnam, in conjunction with Carnegie Mellon University, has a STEM syllabus for preschoolers. One benefit of starting kids

“Our ultimate goal is to increase

the number and diversity of

students pursuing STEM careers.”

Hank NourseDirector, Digital Content Strategy & Instructional DesignNew York Academy of Sciences

3

early is cultivating a love of STEM topics before cultural biases may lead them away from these fields.

NYAS highlights five strategies schools can use to foster an inspiring STEM culture that includes girls and other underrepresented groups.

1. Promote STEM heroes and STEM professionals as role models. This means highlighting popular figures in the field, such as Astronaut Mae Jemison, and scientists such as Bill Nye and MythBusters’ Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage, as well as local STEM workers, from engineers to scientists.

2. Support the creation of fun, interactive STEM-related activities.

3. Create educational programs that address underrepresented groups, such as women and minorities, and value vocational careers in STEM fields.

4. Invest in STEM teaching to attract high-quality candidates to your schools.

5. Mentor students by connecting them with STEM professionals, graduate students, and other community members engaged in STEM pursuits.

NYAS STEM Materials ReviewTo help schools develop an effective STEM program, NYAS created a framework that includes 26 features of quality STEM education in three areas: core competencies, instructional design, and implementation. For each element, the framework offers benchmarks to guide the creation and evaluation of learning materials and programs.

The document identifies seven essential skills for students to develop, along with five supporting attributes. These are the capacities students must have, in addition to content knowledge or technical skill, to be truly workforce ready. For example, in the case of problem-solving, exemplary learning materials are those in which, “Students have opportunities to develop their ability to generate solutions to a range of STEM-based problems and scenarios, including organizing ideas, defining goals and milestones, and executing plans.”

Other essential skills include critical thinking, creativity, communication, collaboration, data literacy, and digital literacy and computer science.

Equally important are aspects of instructional design that support the development of these skills. These include:

1. Research-based pedagogy

2. STEM content integration

3. Real-world application

4. Problem- or project-based learning

5. Scaffolding

6. Assessment

7. Cultural sensitivity and relevance

8. Technology integration

Again, the framework provides guidelines for what high-quality instruction looks like. In regards to problem- or project-based learning, for example, exemplary programs are those in which “Students have multiple opportunities to work collaboratively to identify a problem, identify and implement one or more solutions, and present their work to various stakeholders.”

“Teaching science to the very young,

in the early education years,

helps ground them in thinking

scientifically.”

Tim OatesGroup Director, Assessment Research and DevelopmentCambridge Assessment

4

The last part of the framework describes the conditions needed to support effective implementation, including accessibility, alignment to local contexts, professional development and learning supports, evidence of effectiveness, access to materials and practitioner support, and scalability.

“This codifies our position on STEM education and provides a roadmap for educators and curriculum designers,” says Nourse.

While there are plenty of standards in STEM areas, from the Next Generation Science Standards to the Common Core, there are few frameworks that address the cross disciplinary nature of STEM and these essential “21st-century skills,” says Nourse.

“We’re not trying to replace content standards, but rather augment them to reflect the full range of knowledge and skills needed to succeed in the modern workplace,” he says.

One of the Academy’s key partners in developing the framework was SRI International, the independent, nonprofit research center. SRI was glad to join NYAS because, “there’s always a dearth of materials to support teachers that meet critical thinking goals and content goals. We’ve heard that need for a long time,” says Britte Cheng, a senior education researcher at the organization’s Center for Technology in Learning.

She adds that pairing SRI’s expertise in education research with the Academy’s understanding of STEM careers ensures that the framework bridges the gap between research and practice. Also, she acknowledges that the rubric can change as research and practice continue to evolve.

The entire 30-page document is available at the Academy’s website (globalstemalliance.org/certification).

How Schools Can Benefit from CertificationWhile NYAS reviews ultimately help schools by creating a ready-made list of approved materials, there are benefits for curriculum designers even before the process is complete.

“Not every type of curriculum is meant to do all these things,” adds Cheng. “We take that into account.” This type of back-and-forth allows companies to improve materials if needed before releasing them to the market.

“The certification process is really important,” says Cindy Moss, Discovery Education’s senior director of global STEM initiatives. “There are a lot of people creating things for education, but there’s not a Good Housekeeping seal of approval.”

Of course, once completed, the successful materials do create a nice go-to list for educators searching for vetted materials. “One of our long-term goals is to create a repository of certified materials that decision makers can trust,” says Nourse.

Cheng said she wasn’t sure how companies would view the certification process. “We thought some would say, ‘Don’t tell us our business,’ ” she says. “What we heard was relief.”

“We’ve had a very good response from the industry and educators,” says Nourse. “Educators are eager.” Although the certification was only unveiled in December 2016, materials from several providers have already been reviewed.

Matt Cwalina, Discovery Education’s vice president for digital instruction, says they jumped at the chance to have the company’s Science Techbook and PD programs undergo the review. It was important for the company to get outside approval of its materials, he adds.

Going through the process and getting feedback “really informs and validates our approach to how we build STEM resources,” he adds. With such strict qualifications, Discovery Education was thrilled to receive such a positive evaluation from the Academy’s review process.

Cheng praised Discovery Education’s professional development programs, saying the company “built PD that made sense.” She liked that Discovery Education was able to alter its approach to meet the needs of each individual school or district.

“There are a lot of people creating

things for education, but there’s not a

Good Housekeeping seal of approval.”

Cindy MossDirector of Global STEM InitiativesDiscovery Education

5

Discovery Education’s Deep Investment in STEM LearningGaining approval from NYAS highlights how carefully Discovery Education develops all the materials it creates for schools.

First, the company takes care to hire leaders who were classroom teachers and school administrators. Moss was a teacher and administrator for 20 years in both Charlotte and upstate New York. Camsie McAdams, the company’s director of STEM curriculum, comes directly from the U.S. Department of Education where she served as the assistant director for STEM under Secretary Arne Duncan. Before that, McAdams was the director of STEM for the D.C. public schools.

Hiring experts with experience in schools helps ensure Discovery Education materials meet the needs of today’s teachers and school leaders. These experts not only know what works in a classroom, they know where the roadblocks are, what policies can derail an otherwise solid plan, and how to focus on student achievement above all else.

In addition to hiring veteran teachers and school leaders, Discovery Education takes care to maintain close contact with both today’s students and their teachers. Discovery Education has 50 million students using its materials and 3 million teachers who log in to its Discovery Education Network. “We connect educators to each other and to thought leaders,” Moss says. The company gets instant feedback on its materials and because they are digital, making needed changes can be accomplished efficiently.

Each piece of material the company creates goes through an arduous process.

The latest product, STEM Connect, is a supplemental resource that pushes students to develop and apply knowledge to important real-world challenges. Discovery Education had 100 content developers and writers working on STEM Connect, from writing the curriculum to ironing out the user interface. The company worked on the product for about two years, from preplanning to getting teacher feedback on materials, says Cwalina. STEM Connect will hit the market in January 2018.

Other Discovery Education STEM materials include the company’s Science Techbook and an assortment of STEM professional development services that are aimed at everyone from the classroom teacher to building principal to areawide officials. (The company also has separate Math and Social Studies Techbooks.) Science Techbook is a great tool to help change the way science is taught because it uses phenomena to spark students’ natural curiosities, offering everything from STEM project starters to interactive tools to hands-on labs to model lessons.

The company’s commitment to learning goes beyond creating materials. Moss says Discovery Education will partner with districts to help them advance STEM learning whether they are starting from scratch or if they just want to enhance what they already offer. She consults about how districts can pay for materials and how they can tap into grants and federal money. “If we can talk, we can help them solve their problems,” she adds. “We have a library of research articles if we need to give them the confidence to take the leap.”

Making STEM an Everyday TopicAs good as these tools are, Discovery

“We organically let those content

areas come up and we show

those connections to the user.”

Matt Cwalina Vice President for Digital InstructionDiscovery Education

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Education knows how schools implement these programs is a big factor in boosting STEM education. For that reason, its experts have developed several ways for schools to make STEM a daily part of each school’s workflow. One of the biggest problems in this push is that the topic is frequently split into discrete subjects, such as math, science, and technology. But Cwalina says Discovery Education used this knowledge as an advantage when creating materials.

“So often we focus on a set of standards and we build material to those standards,” he says. In the case of the company’s STEM materials, experts instead started by thinking of what problems they wanted students to solve. “We organically let those content areas come up and we show those connections to the user.”

As a veteran educator, Moss knows the problems that schools face in trying to change their culture.

“The way we’re teaching really isn’t working,” she says. “We pigeonhole subjects; having literacy for 90 minutes doesn’t reflect how children will use their skills in the real world.”

School leaders and teachers “want to break out of it, but don’t know how.” This type of learning by subject instead of using the tools of many subjects to problem-solve isn’t the way students will need to work once they graduate.

Moss likes to point to the results of a survey from the National Inventors Hall of Fame as proof of what’s needed in schools. When its members were polled about when they first had the idea they ended up creating, 84 percent of the inventors said the idea happened before they were 10. Some even admitted they had their ideas before they were 7, meaning they would have been in second grade.

“Everybody has some piece of genius inside them,” says Moss. “It’s just a matter of figuring that out.”

How STEM Connect Can HelpSTEM Connect, Discovery Education’s newest STEM product, was created specifically to make STEM accessible to every child. Developed with the knowledge and experience that Discovery Education has put into its other STEM resources, STEM Connect allows students to brainstorm multiple solutions, tackle relevant real-world challenges, and connect their learning to career opportunities.

McAdams, the company’s leader on STEM Connect, knew she wanted to address what she saw as one of the more overlooked parts of STEM education, teacher support.

“In order to teach our kids the most cutting edge material, it has to start with the teachers,” she says. McAdams says all teachers know students are inherently creative but schools need to do a better job of nurturing this creativity. This approach matches how Discovery Education helps teachers, she adds. “We meet teachers where they are.”

With today’s more rigorous standards, McAdams says that elementary teachers are being asked to teach concepts they may not be familiar with.

“If you need calculus to teach fourth grade, that doesn’t mesh with how we train teachers,” she says. “Too much higher level math and science can scare elementary teachers.”

On the student side, STEM Connect asks students to face real-world challenges. By choosing items that are part of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, Discovery Education picked eight topics kids could understand, such as conservation and how to provide food and clean water around the globe.

The program has a built-in flexibility, McAdams explains. While the supplemental curriculum includes specific lesson plans that can be followed step-by-step, teachers can also use the lessons more as a general guide to create open-ended work. In both cases, students are

“We meet teachers where they are.”

Camsie McAdamsDirector of STEM CurriculumDiscovery Education

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expected to find their own answers to the problems posed.

That flexibility is meant to avoid a problem McAdams ran into when she was a student. As a successful high school student, McAdams remembers how she was programmed to follow instructions, only to find out at college that her first chemistry class was open-ended with no directions.

“I had a wake-up call,” she remembers.

Encouraging open-ended solutions ensures that students will sharpen skills that serve them when they go to fill jobs that haven’t been created yet, she adds. She wants students going through STEM Connect to ask, “What if we did something different?” Or to say, “Yeah, but what if …?”

STEM Connect offers eight global areas per grade level band for elementary and middle schools.

Putting a School Plan into MotionCombing through all the details that make for a robust STEM education program can seem overwhelming, but that doesn’t have to be the case. While materials exist to help boost even the most comprehensive STEM schools, officials all agree that no matter where a school is on the STEM spectrum, starting improvements is the key.

“Being on the pathway is good,” says Cheng. “Different districts have capacity to do different things. We’re always trying to find ways to move people to the next step.”

McAdams says she constantly is hearing from school administrators and teachers who say, “We want to do STEM but we don’t know what it really looks like in the classroom.”

By using the Academy’s new framework and Discovery Education’s carefully created resources, educators have a map they can follow to improve their STEM education. Nourse says early reactions to the framework are encouraging.

“Educators and school leaders want to prepare their students for the future, and they need trusted partners and resources to help them meet ever-changing demands,” says Nourse. The Academy’s framework and certification program are designed to meet this need. “STEM education is more important than ever before, and schools increasingly recognize this.”

“Different districts have capacity to

do different things. We’re always trying

to find ways to move people to the

next step”

Discovery Education STEM Connect is an interdisciplinary K-8 resource that enhances core curriculum. It guides students to develop and apply knowledge and skills to important real-world challenges as it

helps them to build real possibilities for their future.

Learn more at DiscoveryEducation.com/STEMConnect

About the AuthorWayne D’Orio

Wayne D’Orio is an award-winning education editor and writer, having covered issues, leaders, and technology in K-12 for more than a

decade. For seven years, Wayne was the editor-in-chief of Scholastic Administrator. His work has also been featured recently in Sierra magazine, the Washington Post, and Education Next.

Britte ChengSenior Education Researcher, Center for Technology in LearningNew York Academy of Sciences