What is STEM Accelerator?
As the Director of STEM Accelerator for NC New Schools/Breakthrough Learning, I am asked this question quite frequently.
STEM Accelerator is our renewed approach to science, technology, engineering and math, better known as STEM, education. Though we have a rich history of STEM education from years of working with districts, colleges and businesses, we knew that more was needed to address the future shortages, possibility in the millions, of STEM workers. We needed to take action and we needed to do it now.
The goal of STEM Accelerator is to prepare and inspire the next generation of designers, builders, thinkers, and creators. In our schools, we will work with educators to design learning environments that promote intellectual curiosity, cultural awareness, social responsibility, and complex problem solving. This will all be done in partnership with business and higher education.
Thus far, we have identified a small cohort of schools to test and refine our model for STEM education before it is implemented on a national basis. I visited three of the STEM Accelerator schools to gather information on best practices in STEM, and I gained three valuable insights:
Critical thinking is not subject specific
In October, I traveled to Charlotte Engineering Early College – UNC Charlotte. This school is in its second year of operation, yet every teacher has already fully adopted two essential instructional strategies related to STEM, the engineering design process and project-based learning. After speaking with teachers, I discovered that it is very common for students in English class to use the engineering design process to write papers or analyze poetry. This same process is used in science class to guide students through laboratory experiments. Furthermore, all students in each grade level are working on collaborative projects. Students in the 9th grade are completing on a project to prevent nuclear terror and 10th graders are creating a prototype of a city fueled entirely by one form of renewable energy.
Students are inspired by experience
My next visit was to Wake STEM Early College High School located on the campus of North Carolina State University. This school has an array of partnerships that provide students with unique experiences that build career awareness and global relations. The principal was proud to note that every senior has acquired an internship aligned with his/her career interests. The school has a joint partnership with the Suzhou North America High School located in China and the Friday Institute of Educational Innovation. Students at Wake STEM and Suzhou High School collaborate for months through multiple technology apps to complete projects related to the Grand Challenges for Engineering. At the end of each project, students at Wake STEM present their work to public audiences filled with parents, industry professionals and university professors.
Community Counts
Last, but by no means the least, I went to the Northeast Academy of Aerospace and Advanced Technologies. This is a charter school on the campus of Elizabeth City State University that just opened in August 2015 to 8th and 9th grade students. As the principal led me from class to class, the enthusiasm for learning and connection to the community were particularly apparent. Students were eager to share what they were learning from a project to promote the university’s campus. Each class was making its own contribution to the “Walking Tour of Elizabeth City State University” project. In social studies, I saw students researching the historical landmarks on the campus that opened in 1891. Students learned how to calculate the average walking time between landmarks in math class. Lastly, in Earth and Environmental Science, students were putting the finishing touches on presentations about elements of the campus’ ecosystem.
These brief visits are only the beginning of our work towards building a framework for STEM Accelerator. I will continue to partner with these and other schools to learn more about practices that help to increase student interest and performance in science, technology, engineering and math.
Learn more from our STEM Accelerator White paper.
