Thursday, September 22, 2016

Reason why I choose STEM.

I choose STEM because it is accurate in my course when I go to college. STEM helps me to give a little light about my lessons in my college life.


STEM is a curriculum based on the idea of educating students in four specific disciplines — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — in an interdisciplinary and applied approach. Rather than teach the four disciplines as separate and discrete subjects, STEM integrates them into a cohesive learning paradigm based on real-world applications.
Though the United States has historically been a leader in these fields, fewer students have been focusing on these topics recently. According to the U.S. Department of Education, only 16 percent of high school students are interested in a STEM career and have proven a proficiency in mathematics. Currently, nearly 28 percent of high school freshmen declare an interest in a STEM-related field, a department website says, but 57 percent of these students will lose interest by the time they graduate from high school.
As a result, the Obama administration announced the 2009 "Educate to Innovate" campaign to motivate and inspire students to excel in STEM subjects. This campaign also addresses the inadequate number of teachers skilled to educate in these subjects. The goal is to get American students from the middle of the pack in science and math to the top of the pack in the international arena.
Thirteen agencies are partners in the Committee on Stem Education (CoSTEM), including mission science agencies and the U.S. Department of Education. CoSTEM is working to create a joint national strategy to invest federal funds in K-12 STEM education, increasing public and youth STEM engagement, improving the STEM experience for undergraduates, reaching demographics underrepresented in STEM fields, and designing better graduate education for the STEM workforce. The Department of Education now offers a number of STEM-based programs, including research programs with a STEM emphasis, STEM grant selection programs and general programs that support STEM education.
The Obama administration's 2014 budget invests $3.1 billion in federal programs on STEM education, with an increase of 6.7 percent over 2012. The investments will be made to recruit and support STEM teachers, as well as support STEM-focused high schools with STEM Innovation Networks. The budget also invests into advanced research projects for education, to better understand next-generation learning technologies.
All of this effort is to meet a need. According to a report by the websiteSTEMconnector.org, by 2018, projections estimate the need for 8.65 million workers in STEM-related jobs. The manufacturing sector faces an alarmingly large shortage of employees with the necessary skills — nearly 600,000. The field of cloud computing alone will have created 1.7 million jobs between 2011 and 2015, according to the report. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that by 2018, the bulk of STEM careers will be:
  • Computing – 71 percent
  • Traditional Engineering – 16 percent
  • Physical sciences – 7 percent
  • Life sciences – 4 percent
  • Mathematics – 2 percent
STEM jobs do not all require higher education or even a college degree. Less than half of entry-level STEM jobs require a bachelor's degree or higher. However, a four-year degree is incredibly helpful with salary — the average advertised starting salary for entry-level STEM jobs with a bachelor's requirement was 26 percent higher than jobs in the non-STEM fields, according to the STEMconnect report. For every job posting for a bachelor's degree recipient in a non-STEM field, there were 2.5 entry-level job postings for a bachelor's degree recipient in a STEM field.
This is not a problem unique to the United States. In the United Kingdom, the Royal Academy of Engineering reports that the Brits will have to graduate 100,000 STEM majors every year until 2020 just to meet demand. According to the report, Germany has a shortage of 210,000 workers in the mathematics, computer science, natural science and technology disciplines.
What separates STEM from the traditional science and math education is the blended learning environment and showing students how the scientific method can be applied to everyday life. It teaches students computational thinking and focuses on the real world applications of problem solving. As mentioned before, STEM education begins while students are very young:
  • Elementary school — STEM education focuses on the introductory level STEM courses, as well as awareness of the STEM fields and occupations. This initial step provides standards-based structured inquiry-based and real world problem-based learning, connecting all four of the STEM subjects. The goal is to pique students' interest into them wanting to pursue the courses, not because they have to. There is also an emphasis placed on bridging in-school and out-of-school STEM learning opportunities.
     
  • Middle school — At this stage, the courses become more rigorous and challenging. Student awareness of STEM fields and occupations is still pursued, as well as the academic requirements of such fields. Student exploration of STEM related careers begins at this level, particularly for underrepresented populations.
     
  • High school — The program of study focuses on the application of the subjects in a challenging and rigorous manner. Courses and pathways are now available in STEM fields and occupations, as well as preparation for post-secondary education and employment. More emphasis is placed on bridging in-school and out-of-school STEM opportunities.
Much of the STEM curriculum is aimed toward attracting underrepresented populations. Female students, for example, are significantly less likely to pursue a college major or career. Though this is nothing new, the gap is increasing at a significant rate. Male students are also more likely to pursue engineering and technology fields, while female students prefer science fields, like biology, chemistry, and marine biology. Overall, male students are three times more likely to be interested in pursuing a STEM career, the STEMconnect report said.
Ethnically, Asian students have historically displayed the highest level of interest in the STEM fields. Prior to 2001, students of an African-American background also showed high levels of interest in STEM fields, second only to the Asian demographic. However, since then, African-American interest in STEM has dropped dramatically to lower than any other ethnicity. Other ethnicities with high STEM interest include American Indian students.
(http://www.livescience.com/43296-what-is-stem-education.html)
Senior High School (SHS) students opting to take the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Strand have a set of core subjects slightly different from those taking the other strands (Accountancy, Business, and Management; General Academic; and Humanities and Social Science).
While students in the other strands take “Earth and Life Science” and “Physical Science,” STEM students take “Earth Science” and “Disaster Readiness and Risk Reduction.” STEM students are presumed to be more literate in science and, therefore, capable of tackling more advanced science subjects.
“Earth Science,” for example tackles such topics as hydroelectric energy, continental drift, and index fossils. “Disaster Preparedness and Risk Reduction,” on the other hand, helps students identify areas exposed to hazards that may lead to disasters, recognize vulnerabilities of different elements exposed to specific hazards, interpret different earthquake hazard maps, and use available tools for monitoring hydrometeorological hazards. (If you think basic education is “basic,” think again!)
After such “easy stuff,” STEM students then take the following Specialized Subjects:
Pre-Calculus
Basic Calculus
General Biology 1 & 2
General Physics 1 & 2
General Chemistry 1 & 2
Work Immersion / Research / Career Advocacy / Culminating Activity
The teaching of calculus in SHS is a simple illustration of the reason the old (that is, current) General Education Curriculum (GEC) subjects are no longer relevant to university students.
In the old GEC, for example, Algebra is a required subject. Clearly, to take Algebra after you have mastered Basic Calculus is patently silly.
Similarly, the two introductory subjects in the old GEC on Natural Sciences are also no longer necessary, since STEM students will have had specialized subjects in biology, physics, and chemistry.
It is not only the STEM students that will find the two Mathematics and the two Natural Sciences subjects in the current GEC unnecessary. The core subjects for the other tracks (“Earth and Life Science” and “Physical Science”) tackle more advanced topics than those usually taken up in the current GEC.
For example, the non-STEM “Earth and Life Science” also takes up the topics I mentioned earlier (though less in depth). It even includes “How genetic engineering is used to produce novel products” and “Describe how the present system of classification of organisms is based on evolutionary relationships.”
The non-STEM “Physical Science” tackles such things as “Give evidence for and explain the formation of the light elements in the Big Bang theory” and “Cite the contributions of J. J. Thomson, Ernest Rutherford, Henry Moseley, and Niels Bohr to the understanding of the structure of the atom.”
In fact, even the “General Mathematics” subject that all SHS students (both STEM and non-STEM) take already covers such things as “Distinguishes logarithmic function, logarithmic equation, and logarithmic inequality” and “Calculates the fair market value of a cash flow stream that includes an annuity.”
I like taking Calculus as an example of how the K to 12 curriculum is now in step with the rest of the world. If you go to Amazon.com and search for “calculus textbook 2014,” these are two of the recent titles you will find:
“5 Steps to a 5 AP Calculus BC, 2014-2015 Edition” – a reviewer that helps high school students pass entrance examinations to universities.
“Calculus for the Ambitious” – according to the blurb, “It will open up the ideas of the calculus for any 16 to 18 year old about to begin studies in mathematics.”
Of course, what is offered in SHS is only Basic Calculus, not the kind of calculus that, say, is covered by “Calculus: Early Transcendental Functions,” a textbook meant for a three-semester course for engineering students in college.
I can almost hear so many math-challenged students cry out in anticipated pain, but think again. If what you want is a job, the most numerous and most lucrative jobs are in the STEM field. (The STEM Strand is also the one to be used by those planning to go into a health-related area such as nursing or medicine, or an IT field such as analytics.)
If, on the other hand, what you want is to help the country, today’s heroes are really scientists. One reason our country is lagging behind practically every other country in development is our lack of scientists.
Why do we lack scientists? One cause is the lack of good science teachers. Representative Antonio Tinio is quoted in the 18 March 2013 issue of Asian Scientist Magazine as saying, “We have a lot of problems in the country’s science education. One of them is the shortage of teachers who have a background in science.”
If more students take the STEM Strand (not to go to nursing, which is an overpopulated field, but into the hard sciences), we shall have not only more scientists but more science teachers. Ultimately, the country will be scientifically literate.
The Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Technical Panel on Engineering, by the way, has decided to decrease the number of college years it normally takes to acquire an engineering degree. Right now, it takes five years after high school. Students who finish Grade 12, on the other hand, will need only four more years to finish their engineering degree.
(http://www.philstar.com/education-and-home/2014/07/03/1341906/stem-strand)
And that is the reason for me to choose STEM in my senior high course because it is accurate in my course in my college.

2 comments:

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  2. Awesome! I've really learned a lot from your blog about STEM. Thanks for all the wonderful information that you have shared.

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