STEM Leadership and International Test Scores

I was just reading Steve Peha's weekly newsletter who pointed me towards an article by Gerald Bracey: this relatively brief blog post.  I'd like to quote it since it makes a significant point about technology leadership,  STEM education, and cross-national test comparisons:

It should be noted that these rankings <PISA Test> are determined by nations’ average scores. ....A publication from OECD itself observes that if one examines the number of highest-scoring students in science, the United States has 25% of all high-scoring students in the world (at least in “the world” as defined by the 58 nations taking part in the assessment—the 30 OECD nations and 28 “partner” countries). Among nations with high average scores, Japan accounted for 13% of the highest scorers, Korea 5%, Taipei 3%, Finland 1%, and Hong Kong 1%. Singapore did not participate.

The picture emerging from this highest-scorer comparison is far different than that suggested by the frequently cited national average comparisons; it is a picture that suggests many American schools are actually doing very well indeed.

Of course, the U.S. is much larger than these other countries and should be expected to produce larger numbers of successful students. But it is only when we look beyond the mean and consider the distribution of students and schools that we see the true picture. 

Science Standards

I'm working on a very ambitious K-2nd science curriculum and so we are waiting with baited breath for the latest release of the new standards from Achieve, scheduled for this year some time. In the meantime, we try to predict what they will be by studying the tea leaves and history. I just found a great write-up of the science standards history on the McRel website, I'll quote a bit here:

Science
In science, three efforts have contributed significantly to the development of standards. The National Research Council (NRC) published the National Science Education Standards in December 1996. Material related directly to content standards fills over one-third of the work's 262 pages, while additional chapters address standards for science teaching and professional development, as well as assessment, program, and system standards. The science content standards are written for three grade levels: K-4, 5-8, and 9-12. At each grade level, seven general science topics are addressed. Standards related to these topics become increasingly comprehensive at each grade level.

The second effort within the field of science comes from the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Working from the foundation they helped build in Science for All Americans (1992), AAAS's Project 2061 provides over 60 "literacy goals" in science as well as mathematics, technology, and the social sciences. These goals are well articulated across levels K-2, 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. This effort, published as Benchmarks for Science Literacy (1993), includes a useful discussion and presentation of the research base available to those who worked on the project.

In addition to these efforts, the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) has published the Scope, Sequence and Coordination of National Science Education Content Standards (Aldridge, 1995) as an addendum to The Content Core: A Guide for Curriculum Designers (Pearsall, 1993). This supplement is designed to make the Core more consistent with the recently published NRC standards. NSTA has also released A High School Framework for National Science Education Standards (Aldridge, 1995), developed under a grant from the National Science Foundation. Like the addendum to the Core, this framework builds directly from the November 1994 draft of the NRC science standards. Essential generalizations in physics, chemistry, biology, Earth and space sciences, and other areas organize the framework. Each generalization is described in some detail with a list of the relevant concepts, empirical laws, and theories or models that students will need in order to acquire a solid grounding in the topic. These subsections are presented in grade sequence (9, 10-12) and include a recommended learning sequence. Other useful sources of information come from NAEP, including their Science Objectives: 1990 Assessment, Science Assessment and Exercise Specifications for the 1994 NAEP and Science Framework for the 1996 National Assessment of Educational Progress (since republished as the Science Framework for the 1996-2000 National Assessment of Educational Progress).

Cyberlearning Science Key Take Aways

I was at a conference two weeks ago  on science and cyberlearning. Both the science of learning and how best to learn science were the topics.  I was warned prior to attending that the conference was probable not for me.  It's "very cutting edge" and focused on "what really matters."

As a company that's very interested in meaningful products, I was a little insulted by those comments.  However, I now realize what it means. These discussions try to look beyond the reality of today's budgets, testing cycles, teacher and school capabilities and so on. Their target is the 5-15 years out and assumes away any real questions of commercial viability, teacher capability, training needs, or the other issues about taking anything to scale.

Cyberlearning Science Key Take Aways 

1.        There’s a lot out there in the 5-15 year range which could/should go mainstream in education. In terms of understanding our own positioning, we’re very much pushing todays world forward, not reinventing.  This means, the future is now. We don’t have years and years to establish ourselves. We need to win now and be ready to shift quickly in the future.

2.       Ipad Ipad Ipad. Key visual was two kids in strollers with ipads. After a minute, one kid is captioned as “this one can’t really talk yet.”   Then the other is captioned. “this one can’t talk, can’t walk, and is wearing diapers.”  Then their apps are shown: they’re both playing learning games!

3.       Games. Gamefy! Games so students explore how things work trying to achieve/survive.  Games also at the LMS level so that they’re motivated to progress through lessons.  Social games for involvement.  Games with rewards for motivation. Learning as a puzzle with trial and error made acceptable (unlike in social classroom situations). Games that make challenges stimulating.

4.       People learn through experiences. Very few learn well from textbooks and lectures.  There wasn’t much discussion about the segment that does learn well from textbooks and lectures. I learned a lot from lectures though the years. I doubt I'm the only one but we weren't the target of this group.

5.       Collaboration and social aspects. Constructivist learning.  Groups and people matter. Students discovering knowledge. This was not an explicit instruction crowd at all. 

6.       Diversity of learning. Different speeds etc are the rule. There is no average student.  On average, men wear size 9 shoes, how is going with size 9 shoes for everyone going to work out?  I’d like to reconcile this with the learning styles publicity where the initial conception of it was discredited as a concept.

7.       Kinesthetic learning and learning experiences are a holy grail. Many exotic technologies and clever approaches to experiences.  Create earthquakes with subwoofers and 4 computers recording the event from their spot. Do top down projections on the floor to create an amazing immersive environment.  To me, one striking simple truth that was cited but not pursued is that when kids explain something, they learn it.  BTW, applying this simple truth doesn’t require technology or investment, just classroom management and making kids responsible for their and others grades!

8.       Researchers, please collaborate! NSF is worried about islands of innovation and baffling array of unconnected lessons and approaches going to market instead of a unified progressive technology science curriculum. 

Lastly, I remain more committed than ever to the importance of Science4Us' capability to transform primary science education.  But that the vision and view must continue to expand to include a nice link to hands-on activities and to new technologies and techniques for community and involvement. In short, it'll take a lot of money. It's time for me to realize that this needs major foundation support and that my hope of self-funding this all the way is not the optimal plan.  Sigh.   

Thanks to Time4Learning science education (first grade science, second grade science) and VSC's science vocabulary (kindergarten science words, first grade science words, and second grade science vocabulary words) for helping me starting to look at this area. I'm thinking of signing up to take a science methods class as the local university. Of course, my professor would ironically also be one of my employees.  Does that sound like a good idea?