Parking Lot Speech- Importance of STEM

Parking Lot Speech- Importance of STEM

If a teacher, administrator, or parent asked me to describe the importance of STEM in the short time it takes to walk from my car into the school building, I would do so as follows. STEM fields are among the fastest growing in the professional workforce, and those jobs tend to pay better than non-STEM jobs; however, many students who are educated by a traditional curriculum don’t have the skills and mindsets necessary to tackle those jobs. STEM education emphasizes not only the content knowledge of the domains of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, but the interdisciplinary connections between those fields and the skills and mindsets of professionals in those fields. Those skills include critical thinking, creativity, and research skills, while the mindsets include scepticism, curiosity, and perseverance, among others. Furthermore, STEM promotes a more student-centered approach to instruction, which improves student engagement and achievement through inquiry. This is the focus of the action research project I intend to implement during my spring internship. I hope to find out if an inquiry-based curriculum, characterised by student-generated content, improves student engagement and achievement in a biology class. I aim to study this with a population of gifted learners, because my research up until this point suggests that these students make up a disproportionately high percentage of high school dropouts, likely because they become bored and disengaged with a traditional curriculum. Gifted students by definition have exceptional abilities, and I hypothesize that an inquiry-based curriculum will meet their needs better than a traditional curriculum could. Based on what I’ve learned throughout my own education, incorporating STEM education for all students is important for meeting the needs of diverse learners and preparing them for their lives after school.

    My viewpoint on STEM education hasn’t changed much since our very first residency over a year ago. If I remember correctly, one of the first activities we participated in at residency emphasized the importance of STEM education, and every class we’ve taken since then has stressed those same ideas. The research I’ve done for my action research project has reinforced the details of my “parking lot speech” as well. It’s clear that more student-centered, inquiry-based activities that are characteristic of STEM education have benefits that a traditional education simply can’t provide. It’s therefore up to the teacher to design lessons that appeal to various learners, promote inquiry, and contribute to skill development, all of which are tenets of STEM education. Some of the details of my “parking lot speech” may have changed a bit over the course of our program, but I still feel just as capable of delivering it today as I did last year.