Within ED 690, we are developing a research project to examine one particular issue within STEM education. Because I found community involvement such an interesting topic last week, I have decided to stick with it for this project and explore the concept of implementing some sort of mentorship program in the classroom. This program would bring in members of the community (either people in STEM careers or students from university in STEM majors) to act as mentors and role models for my students.
With the help of this Project Planning Sheet, I will be developing this project further to determine how I would both implement it and assess it's effectiveness.
Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Monday, February 20, 2017
STEM Issues - Community Involvement
While all of the STEM issues that were discussed during the past week were important, I was particularly interested in the one I was assigned: increasing community involvement. It is possible that my interest was peaked because I spent more time reading about it, but when looking at the other issues (society and STEM learning, workforce needs, integrative STEM education, etc.), many seemed to be related to or influenced, at least in part, by the issue of community involvement.
At it's heart, the issue of increasing community involvement in STEM education encourages connections to be formed with entities outside of the school. These entities could be parents, organizations, businesses, policy-makers, and more. The point of community involvement is to create a network of support for students and to place their learning in the context of the world outside of education in order to provide a more meaningful learning experience. Increasing community involvement benefits the students, but it also can benefit the community by producing individuals who are better prepared to serve the community in STEM related ways.
As far as the connection with other issues is concerned, by increasing community involvement, you can mediate some of the concerns about society's opinions of STEM learning. Bringing in STEM professionals from the field can help to provide role models for students who may have never had interaction with people in a STEM career before. This could be particularly beneficial for underrepresented groups like minority, female, and disabled students.
Increasing community involvement in the form of connecting with STEM professionals or STEM-related businesses and organizations can also provide the opportunity for integrative STEM education. There have been many examples recently of schools participating with outside organizations to provide students with STEM instruction in the form of challenges and problem-solving activities. This type of learning often reaches students who may struggle with finding context for content covered in traditional classrooms.
Finally, when organizations get involved with STEM learning, real change can be seen on the educational policy and funding front. Organizations dedicated towards providing better STEM resources for students can mobilize communities to affect legislation and can often do work of their own to provide schools with resources they would not have the budget for otherwise.
As a whole, I think by increasing community involvement in STEM education can have a positive impact on many of the different concerns that the education world is currently facing. It is important to have support for students in STEM courses coming from outside of the school system, especially since connections of these sort are often mutually beneficial. For this reason, community involvement greatly interests me.
At it's heart, the issue of increasing community involvement in STEM education encourages connections to be formed with entities outside of the school. These entities could be parents, organizations, businesses, policy-makers, and more. The point of community involvement is to create a network of support for students and to place their learning in the context of the world outside of education in order to provide a more meaningful learning experience. Increasing community involvement benefits the students, but it also can benefit the community by producing individuals who are better prepared to serve the community in STEM related ways.
As far as the connection with other issues is concerned, by increasing community involvement, you can mediate some of the concerns about society's opinions of STEM learning. Bringing in STEM professionals from the field can help to provide role models for students who may have never had interaction with people in a STEM career before. This could be particularly beneficial for underrepresented groups like minority, female, and disabled students.
Increasing community involvement in the form of connecting with STEM professionals or STEM-related businesses and organizations can also provide the opportunity for integrative STEM education. There have been many examples recently of schools participating with outside organizations to provide students with STEM instruction in the form of challenges and problem-solving activities. This type of learning often reaches students who may struggle with finding context for content covered in traditional classrooms.
Finally, when organizations get involved with STEM learning, real change can be seen on the educational policy and funding front. Organizations dedicated towards providing better STEM resources for students can mobilize communities to affect legislation and can often do work of their own to provide schools with resources they would not have the budget for otherwise.
As a whole, I think by increasing community involvement in STEM education can have a positive impact on many of the different concerns that the education world is currently facing. It is important to have support for students in STEM courses coming from outside of the school system, especially since connections of these sort are often mutually beneficial. For this reason, community involvement greatly interests me.
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