CEO Message: Improving the Quality of STEM Education

STEM careers dominate the workplace in our increasingly complex and connected world, but many students lack the training and critical thinking to compete and engage on a global level. What can and should the education community do to support the growth of STEM education? How are schools and school systems ensuring quality in STEM education?

As the effort to foster and perpetuate enthusiasm for STEM disciplines grows, best practices need to be shared in order to make a transformational impact that will address the questions above for current and future learners. This is why we chose Improving the Quality of STEM Education as the topic for the spring 2015 issue of The Source.

In this issue our authors share how their respective research, initiatives and tools can lead to the sustained improvement of  STEM education and reach learners in new and innovative ways while preparing them to complete in a global, diverse workforce.

Miami-Dade County Public Schools’ Superintendent, Alberto M. Carvalho reinforces the importance that schools need to place on STEM programs by sharing current initiatives within his system in Broadening Students’ Participation in STEM.

East Noble School Corporation Superintendent, Ann W. Linson and Assistant Superintendent Dr. Rebecca Lamon collaborated on Enhancing Curriculum with STEM Integration to outline how their institutions incorporate STEM activities within all of their core subjects.

In Green STEM: STEM As It’s Meant To Be, colleagues at McREL International, Anne Tweed, Director of STEM Learning and STEM Curriculum and Professional Development Consultant, Laura Arndt, describe how inspiring and empowering learners to design community-based STEM solutions can address local problems.

Brett Reid, Vice President of Technology and Dr. Wylmarie Sykes, Vice President of Instructional Design at SUNRISE Virtual Reality share how virtual learning changes the STEM model from a unresponsive scientific repository to a highly relevant current event in their article, Learning in 3D: Making STEM Real.

Doannie Tran, Founder and CEO at The Teaching Genome explains how teachers within the same institution can work under the illusion of common purpose and how that affects STEM learning in his article, If You Want Better Collaboration Around STEM, Build Infrastructure.

Dr. Jeff C. Marshall, Associate Professor of Science Education at Clemson University, describes his plan to narrow the STEM achievement gap through Inquiry-based instruction practices in his article, Helping All Students Succeed: A Plan to Narrow the Achievement Gap in STEM Education.    

In How Do We Improve Elementary Math Education? It Starts in High School, Dr. Linda Griffin, former math teacher and current Assistant Professor of Teacher Education Department at Lewis & Clark's Graduate School of Education and Counseling details the significance of today’s learners positively experiencing math so that those that become teachers can excel at teaching the subject in the future.

Elizabeth Parry, engineer and consultant in K-12 Engineering, and a Coordinator and Instructor at the College of Engineering at North Carolina State University, writes about the common omission of engineering in most K-12 STEM initiatives and its critical impact in a civilized society in her article, The “E” in STEM: Explicitly Teaching Engineering.

Dr. Vicki Denmark, Vice President of Education Innovation, concludes this issue with her article, AdvancED Launches STEM Certification Pilot, outlining the certification’s research-based framework. The article highlights the nine pilot schools and describes the criteria for awareness, continuous improvement and assessment of the quality, rigor and substance of an institution’s STEM educational program.

As ensuring learners are workforce ready remains a global concern and priority, Improving the Quality of STEM Education will continue to be prevalent topic among educators and policymakers. We thank our authors for sharing their approaches and depth of knowledge on the subject matter. We look forward to subscriber comments and hope that each of you are inspired to share some of our current or past articles with your professional, personal or social networks.