STEM educationConnecting individual K-12 STEM subjects for better results
A new report from the National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council examines current efforts to connect the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines in K-12 education, both in formal classroom settings and informal learning environments, and suggests research to help determine the conditions most likely to lead to positive outcomes such as greater student retention and achievement, improved college-readiness skills, and increased interest in pursuing a STEM-related career.
A new report from the National Academy of Engineering and National Research Council examines current efforts to connect the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines in K-12 education, both in formal classroom settings and informal learning environments, and suggests research to help determine the conditions most likely to lead to positive outcomes such as greater student retention and achievement, improved college-readiness skills, and increased interest in pursuing a STEM-related career. A short video illustrating today’s STEM education landscape and the potential benefits and challenges of integrated approaches also was released in conjunction with the report. An National Academy of Sciences release reports that the report and video note that the recently published Next Generation Science Standards, which encourage integration between science concepts and engineering practices, provide an impetus for considering integration.
“STEM disciplines are vital for a thriving economy and provide a foundation for successful employment, but in K-12 education, most STEM teaching and learning focuses on science or mathematics, while comparatively little attention has been paid to technology and engineering,” said Margaret A. Honey, chair of the committee that wrote the report and president and CEO of the New York Hall of Science. “In addition, K-12 STEM standards and assessments have tended to focus on the individual subjects, which, for the most part, have been taught in isolation. So, the potential for fostering the natural connections among the four STEM subjects for the benefit of students is exciting.”
While there may be advantages to some forms of integration, knowledge in individual STEM disciplines still must be supported, the report says. Connecting ideas across disciplines is challenging when students have little or no understanding of the individual disciplines, and students do not always or naturally use their disciplinary knowledge in integrated contexts.
Since the expertise of educators is important for these connections to be made, additional training to prepare classroom and after-/out-of-school educators is needed.
The committee noted that disciplinary integration can have both positive and negative effects. The basic qualities of cognition favor connected concepts over separate concepts, so integration can effectively support an individual’s ability to transfer understanding to new or unfamiliar situations. At the same time, integration can impede learning because it can place excessive demands on resource-limited cognitive processes, such as attention and working memory.
Federal agencies such as the U.S. Department of Education and National Science Foundation should consider supporting efforts to create assessments appropriate to measuring the various learning and affective outcomes of integrated STEM education, the report says. It also presents a descriptive framework to provide a common perspective and vocabulary for practitioners, researchers, and others to identify, discuss, and investigate specific integrated STEM education initiatives.
The study was sponsored by the S. D. Bechtel Jr. Foundation/Stephen Bechtel Fund, National Science Foundation, Samueli Foundation, and PTC Inc.
— Read more in STEM Integration in K-12 Education: Status, Prospects, and an Agenda for Research (National Academies Press, 2014)
