1) How would
you describe STEM education to a friend or family member in informal
conversation?
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If I were to describe STEM education to a friend or
family member, I would tell them how STEM education has a large emphasis on
discovery learning, learning through applications, and hands-on engagement. STEM
education is an individual learning process that can and should be tailored to
meet the needs of each and every student. The education for each student should
be equivalent in the content being taught, but flexible in that way that each
student is able to learn and master the material.
2) Why do you
think STEM education is (or is not) important?
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I believe STEM education is important because many
careers and opportunities revolve around STEM education. Furthermore, many of
the processes that run our world from the laws of physics to the behavior of Mother
Nature can be demonstrated and understood through a strong STEM education. In
addition, while the goal of STEM education is not to make every student
concentrate on STEM related careers, I feel that STEM education can be helpful
for anyone in any career to have a better understanding of the world around you
no matter what field that you enter in the workplace. Moreover, I feel that STEM education can help
students when they start working through the ideas of problem solving and
creativity (Deangelis, 2017).
3) What is the
value of incorporating or enhancing STEM in public education?
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The value of incorporating and enhancing STEM in
public education is that students with a strong education in STEM content will
be better informed of the world around them and have a greater appreciation for
their planet. I feel this is important for 21st century learners and
future workers because through a deeper understanding citizens will be more
aware to protect our planet with the changing climate as well as other major
issues like growing transportation and population with a limited number of
roads and agriculture space for our planet. The next generation of learner will
be the bright minds who solve the major problems of this century. For instance,
some teachers are already finding their students working through solutions for
things like carbon emissions as high school students (Mason, 2016).
4) Exploration
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I looked through the article Wired.com as well as the
article on The Huffington Post. I found these articles to be very helpful to
have another point of view for a more diverse understanding of STEM education. My
original thoughts were reinforced because of the idea that the skills learned
through STEM education can be applied to whatever career or future plans that
you have with the ideas of creativity and problem-solving skills. Some
additional reasons that STEM education should be involved in the planning and
teaching is that a strong STEM education provides students with a context and
an application for their learning and where the ideas might apply in the
future. For instance, I taught quadratic equations to my students and provided
them the context of throwing objects or projectiles like rockets and the idea
of how NASA calculated sending a man to the moon. On Social Media, I found
under the STEM Education twitter account several tweets about events and
articles for the pursuit of increasing the number of women and minorities
involved in STEM-related fields to create a more diverse atmosphere with new
ideas.
References
