Preparing Students for the Future

By Megan Hancock

           “When am I ever going to use this?”  As teachers, this is a question we hear all of the time in our classrooms, no matter what grade or subject we teach.  We are doing our best to prepare students for jobs that have not yet been created, while students are struggling to make the connections between the topics they learn in the classroom and everyday life. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) integration is becoming a hot topic of discussion as educators work to determine how to integrate the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) mathematics content and process standards.  How can we help students see the importance of STEM in their future careers by integrating these standards?

            The TEKS Mathematical process standards guide students to think about math concepts, help students make connections between different mathematical topics, provide multiple models and representations for communicating mathematical thinking, and weave other knowledge and skills together so that students become successful problem solvers.  Because of this, I believe these process standards are inviting teachers to integrate STEM topics into our classrooms.  “Students need to actively engage with STEM ideas, to discuss, discover, and grapple with concepts in their own ways” (Walkington & Lucero, 2014, p.2).  According to Stohlmann, Moore, and Roehrig (2012), the ten best practices for teaching math and science are “manipulatives and hands-on learning; cooperative learning; discussion and inquiry; questioning and conjectures; justification of thinking; writing for reflection and problem solving; problem solving approach; integrate technology; teacher as a facilitator; and use assessment as a part of instruction.  When students are using problem solving strategies to analyze given information, they are discussing, questioning, making conjectures, and problem solving.  Because of this, I believe the TEKS Mathematical process standards go hand-in-hand with these ten best practices for integrating STEM.     

Video retrieved from: www.101qs.com

              Dan Meyer has created many guided discovery lessons for mathematics teachers that integrate STEM and real world activities.  These activities are broken up into three acts.  The video above is an example of a first act video.  The students are presented with a fact about dominoes in a short video clip.  They are then encouraged to hypothesize how many dominos would be needed to topple over a domino the size of a skyscraper. Then, Dan Meyer provides the students with a little more information about skyscrapers and gives them more time to solve the problem.  He follows up with one final video to answer the students’ remaining questions before releasing them complete the activity and reflect over what they learned.  Students are able to integrate STEM into an activity as well as build knowledge about linear and exponential functions by thinking about real world math concepts and using problem solving methods.   

Retrieved from: Gapminder World

             According to Walkington & Lucero (2014), “Stem integration can be supported when students engage in extended, open-ended projects where they investigate a real problem in the world…that requires teamwork, research…and the consolidation of a final product (p. 7).”  Gapminder is a website that provides information about major global development trends with statistics and graphics.  Websites such as this one provide students with information that they can then analyze and connect to other mathematical ideas, which matches the process standard for analyzing mathematical relationships. Students are able to use technology to access the material and science and mathematics to analyze and expand on the material.  Teachers can use this data as a starting

point for a class project or lesson. Students tend to be more engaged in an activity if they understand how it relates to the real world, and Gapminder is a great place to obtain this information. NYC iSchool created a course that was designed for 10^th and 11^th grade students to analyze years of history and develop mathematical skills such as data analysis and quantitative reasoning. 

            The mathematical process standards weave information together and describe how students are supposed to use and interact with mathematics.  This integration of the content and process standards is important for future student success.  Furthermore, STEM connections give students opportunities to work with hands on activities and foster deeper learning from student discovery.   

Stohlmann, M., Moore, T. J., & Roehrig, G. H. (2012).  Considerations for teaching integrated STEM education.  Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER), 2(1), 28 – 34.  Retreived from http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/jpeer/vol2/iss1/4/

Walkington, C. & Lucero, M. (2014).  Teacher guidebook: How to get your students interested in pursuing STEM careers. Retrieved from: http://edu.stemjobs.com