As STEM education programs take hold, Colorado seeks common vision - Students in Travis O'Hair's Creative Engineering class at Skyline High School had grown accustomed to designing solutions to problems stemming from hypothetical hurricanes or earthquakes.
Then he introduced them to a 10-year-old girl from a neighboring elementary school whose debilitating joint condition made it impossible for her to operate a water fountain. She became their "client," and their adaptive-technology project became more than just a school assignment.
"They became very invested in their product," said O'Hair. "They felt like they had a mission, or vision, around what they were building."
O'Hair's class, and its project-based learning, represent just one cog in a burgeoning approach to STEM education — shorthand for science, technology, engineering and math — embraced by the St. Vrain Valley School District and many others.
While a proliferation of grass-roots efforts isn't necessarily bad, stakeholders from education and business are seeking to apply greater coordination to dozens of disparate STEM programs whose popularity spiked in recent years.
Experts such as Brad McLain, who co-directs the XSci Experiential Science Education Research Collaborative at the University of Colorado Denver, said agreement on a set of common goals could streamline what's now a collection of scattered initiatives.
"Having the ability to go after what you're interested in, or even compete for the grant money that's out there, is a healthy thing, like a competitive marketplace in the private sector," he said. "But pulling in the same direction is important, so we can do our own thing in service to larger goals."
The Colorado Department of Education created a new state position last May, financed by federal Race to the Top funds, that administers $500,000 in federal grant money for STEM programs.
But at this point, the definition of a STEM program in K-12 education can mean almost anything, from programs that emphasize math and science, to schools that offer an engineering course, to districts that want to integrate STEM throughout the curriculum.
"We need a vision that moves us forward instead of everyone doing their own thing," said Violeta Garcia, Colorado's newly minted STEM education coordinator. "To have a vision with common goals seems appropriate at this time, but it's not happening yet."
It's getting closer, though.
Colorado Legacy Foundation, in conjunction with the governor's office and a variety of other groups, has been working on a project to more clearly define criteria for quality initiatives and collaboration. Once that framework has been established, both public and private entities can determine how to replicate and grow successful programs — and where industry partners can invest resources.
An online portal will help students and educators connect the dots between those programs and illuminate STEM pathways through school to workforce. Organizations looking to fund STEM initiatives could also use the information to determine which gaps in the pipeline they'd like to fill.
"So how can we take what's good about everything, how can we harness that energy and find common ground and purpose and get everybody moving in the same direction?" said Heather Fox, spokeswoman for the Colorado Legacy Foundation. "That's where there's renewed energy and push."
Even at the federal level, there's a push to consolidate and coordinate. President Barack Obama's proposed 2014 budget, while pumping up funding for STEM education by nearly 7 percent, calls for trimming the number of federally funded programs in half to more precisely target the money.
Launched amid concern over the ability to fill the growing ranks of science- and engineering-related jobs, particularly as those fields expand in Colorado, STEM education has gained traction in the K-12 arena as schools have pursued initiatives both large and small.
DSST Public Schools have grown since 2004 to enroll more than 2,000 students at six STEM charter schools — with big plans for expansion that will more than double enrollment.
CEO Bill Kurtz last week testified before a U.S. House of Representatives education subcommittee on the factors that have contributed to those schools' high performance.
St. Vrain Valley, aided by associations with the University of Colorado at Boulder and IBM, has constructed a STEM program that begins in preschool and encompasses six elementary schools and two middle schools that feed into Skyline High School.
Students who successfully complete the prescribed courses of the "STEM Academy" can earn guaranteed admission to CU's engineering school. That's one reason enrollment has more than tripled from 40 to 130 over the last four years.
"We'll have changed the culture of that whole feeder," said Regina Renaldi, an assistant superintendent in the district. "If we have the success we think we'll have, it will be easy to replicate and sustain in another feeder."
The efforts, aided by a $16.6 million grant from the Race to the Top program and $3.6 million from Investing in Innovation, also have attracted lots of outside interest. Sporadic visits from other districts have turned into a steady stream that necessitated a twice-a-month tour schedule.
It hasn't hurt St. Vrain Valley to have a big hitter like IBM, with many employees in the Longmont area, as a partner.
"The public is realizing the need to start early, not wait until high school or middle school," said Ray Johnson, IBM's corporate citizenship manager. "I was hearing 6-year-olds use the word 'prototype.' "
The district drew on collaboration with Adams 12 Five Star Schools, which three years ago launched its STEM Magnet Lab, one of the first K-8 public STEM schools in Colorado, said Kellie Lauth, the district's science and STEM coordinator.
It started small, with only 250 students. By year's end there were 483 families on the waiting list, and the school expanded to double its original enrollment.
Last year, Adams 12 closed a failing middle school and reopened it with an identical K-8 STEM model with 920 students. The wait list exceeded 300 families.
As students from the K-8 model now move on to high school, Lauth has been working on turning Northglenn High School into a comprehensive STEM high school that will begin operation next fall.
In all, Adams 12 will have more than 4,000 students in its K-12 STEM pipeline at three sites identical in design and with more than 50 strategic partnerships. The district did it all without grant money and at a time of severe budget constraints
Lauth said she's asked all the time how STEM can remain relevant in a few years, when some other initiative becomes education's flavor of the month.
"It's because we don't define it by four letters, but by a teaching and learning vision directly tied to workforce readiness and the promise to have children well prepared," she said. "That need is never going to be gone. We stay relevant because we're constantly hitching ourselves to industry and to what they need, to their problems, to their different careers."
Source :
Denver Post 
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