STEM Matters: Empowering the Next Generation Through Innovative Education
In an era defined by rapid technological advancements and pressing global challenges, STEM education has never been more critical. Our STEM Matters: Leadership from Educational Purposes to Classroom Practices 2025 ASCD/ISTE presentation sheds light on a comprehensive approach to enhance STEM learning, focusing on modern standards, innovative instructional design, and impactful professional development.
What is STEM and Why Does it Matter?
STEM encompasses Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, serving as the foundational language for problem-solving, innovation, and understanding our world.
- Science helps us comprehend the natural world through observation and experimentation, fostering analytical thinking and discovery.
- Technology translates scientific knowledge into practical applications, driving innovation in areas like AI, renewable energy, and medical devices.
- Engineering applies scientific and mathematical principles to create real-world solutions, from infrastructure to sustainable technologies.
- Mathematics provides the logic and structure essential for data analysis, modeling, and design.
The presentation emphasized that established standards from organizations like the National Research Council (NRC) and NGSS Lead States, along with the NAEP Science Assessment Framework that has a heightened focus on technology and engineering, provide a blueprint for prioritizing STEM education around global and societal issues.
Standards Can Create a STEM Curriculum Blueprint
STEM education seamlessly integrates with existing national standards. Consider the classic 3rd-5th grade activity of examining an orchid to understand plant structures for survival (4-LS1-1; NGSS Lead States 2013). From a STEM perspective, this can evolve into addressing real-world problems. For instance, students could explore the invasive bush honeysuckle, a pervasive issue in the Midwestern US that devastates ecosystems by inhibiting native plant growth. By engaging with its ecological impacts through all four STEM domains, students develop a deeper understanding and gain the tools to tackle relevant challenges in their own lives. Discover how an integrated STEM approach can transform learning about invasive species like bush honeysuckle blue print here.
Innovative Instructional Programming
A core aspect of effective STEM education lies in its instructional programming:
- Unit Design utilizes the Understanding by Design (UbD) framework, where the goal is for students to develop evidence-based claims related to standards.
- Lesson Design focuses on “sensemaking“, ensuring students actively construct meaning and solidify their understanding through coherent lesson organization.
- Integrated Instructional Sequences purposefully and intentionally build students’ understanding by drawing on their ideas and experiences to help them formulate evidence-based claims from learning by doing STEM.
For example, understanding climate change involves grasping that human activities contribute to extreme weather. Students learn how technology and engineering help mitigate these effects, and how mathematical models predict future weather patterns. This knowledge empowers students to analyze real-time data, evaluate climate policies, and design solutions for climate change impacts. The process starts by identifying the overarching goals for student understandings and transfer learning. Using UbD procedures, helps educators see the close connection between their desired goals and national standards (see UbD template for learning about severe weather and climate change blue print here).
Prioritizing Real-World Issues and Student Experiences
The presentation advocates for focusing learning around pressing STEM issues, such as climate change, which saw 2023 as the hottest year on record. It underscores the importance of incorporating students’ own ideas and experiences to connect them with STEM topics. Because topics like severe weather and climate change are complex, it is best to break them down into smaller, more powerful conceptual ideas. For example, fundamental understandings of severe weather and climate change are related to how energy transfers –a key idea in grades 6-8 standards (PS3.B: Conservation of Energy and Energy Transfer; NGSS Lead States, 2013). Students can consider how thermal energy (“heat”) transfers and whether it goes from hot to cold, cold to hot, or both ways simultaneously using a simple demonstration involving hot and cold water that is colored to indicate their temperatures (see demo here).
Integrated instructional sequences, often following the 5Es model (Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, Evaluate), are crucial for designing introductory STEM units (see example blue print here). This framework encourages students to engage with global issues, explore them through a STEM lens, construct evidence-based claims, and transfer their learning to new situations. Indeed, this is where the magic happens, when teachers purposefully and intentionally use activities derived from UbD procedures in a purposeful instructional sequence.
Fostering Growth Through Professional Learning
Effective professional learning is paramount for educators. It should mirror the dynamic, engaging methods used with students, fostering a continuous development in both content and pedagogical knowledge for adult learners. Model lessons are highlighted as a key tool for exemplifying desired curriculum, incorporating effective teaching elements, and enabling teachers to reflect on their practices and alignment with modern learning theories and standards.
By focusing on these interconnected pillars—modern standards, innovative instructional programming, and robust professional learning—we can truly ensure that STEM matters for the leaders and innovators of tomorrow.
About the authors
Grace Boersma is a Professional Learning Specialist at Kognity with over 8 years of experience as a high school chemistry teacher. She is passionate about helping teachers create engaging learning experiences through an inquiry lens, and she has received multiple prestigious recognitions including the Science Innovation Hall of Fame Educator Excellence Award and the 2023 Michigan Science Teachers Association Science Teacher of the Year.
Dr. Patrick L. Brown is the executive director of STEAM and career education for the Fort Zumwalt School District in St. Charles, Missouri. With a PhD in curriculum and instruction from the University of Missouri, Columbia, Dr. Brown brings a wealth of experience to his role, having taught at every level from elementary to postsecondary education. His diverse background includes designing and teaching lessons for elementary, middle, and high school students, as well as inspiring future educators through undergraduate and graduate courses. Recognized for his innovative approach, Dr. Brown has earned multiple awards for excellence in teaching science methods and is the National Science Teaching Association bestselling author of Instructional Sequence Matters.
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