Sparking students’ interest in STEM learning and STEM related careers has become a top priority for many school districts. The demand for skilled employees in science, technology, engineering and math career fields continues to rise as the world becomes more technically complex and innovative, and schools need to graduate students with these STEM skills in order to keep up with highly technical and ever-changing world.
STEM skills are beneficial to more than just an engineer or mathematician. Various organizations and companies are in need of workers skilled in STEM, and students going out in the world without STEM skills may be unprepared to succeed in numerous career fields.
The need for STEM skills in the workforce has driven schools such as Nipmuc Regional High School, located in Upton, MA, to take initiative in developing a rigorous STEM program to interest students in STEM learning and prepare them for future careers in STEM-related fields.
After receiving positive feedback from students regarding internship experiences at Boston Children’s Hospital, the school realized two things: One, students wanted to participate in opportunities that brought them into the workforce and helped them build on skills they could use in the future, and two, the school needed to make a better effort at providing its students with career-shadowing and internship opportunities.
SLIDESHOW: Four digital tools that can help you establish a strong STEM network and program.
“The Boston Children’s Hospital internship opportunities had very little to do with the school. There was a gap there; we were not providing [these experiences]. We were missing the boat and we weren’t getting students ready for what was in real life,” said John Clements, principal at Nipmuc Regional High School.
After discussing the need for a STEM program in Nipmuc, Clements and Nipmuc’s assistant principal, Mary Anne Moran, started a small, grant funded STEM program to implement STEM learning and prepare students for future careers in STEM.
“We wanted kids to be engaged; we wanted them to have hands-on learning, we wanted buy-in and we wanted to raise the bar for everyone,” said Clements.
At the Massachusetts STEM Summit 2015 in Worcester, MA, Clements and Moran shared the steps they took to implement a successful STEM program at Nipmuc during a one hour session. Here are their 10 “quick wins” for STEM integration and programming:
1. Listen to your students.
It is difficult to successfully implement a new system or program into a school without buy-in from everyone associated with the school, especially students.
“First, schools must learn how to get feedback from students,” said Clements.
Understanding what students are looking to learn and understand from a STEM program, or any program for that matter, is important to a program’s success. Having access to the right tools to receive this feedback is important as well.
“We used senior exit interview for our kids. They can be honest. We do this through Google Forms, which is a great entry point to using technology. We ask our kids 30 questions about their experience. This helps to build a school improvement plan,” said Clements.
Survey tools that provide schools with valuable feedback from students are important in not only understanding what students want in a STEM program, but also in measuring a program’s success.
Rachel Quetti is the editor of K-12 TechDecisions, aimed at helping K-12 professionals make better decisions about technology purchases for their classrooms, schools and school districts. Rachel joined the TechDecisions team in 2015 and covers the latest technology trends in the K-12 market.Get in Touch: [email protected] More by Rachel Quetti
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