STEM Literacy is for Everyone

MIT professor Richard Larson recently wrote an excellent opinion column - STEM is for Everyone.  In the column, he succinctly made the case for widespread STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) literacy, and explained why it is as important to our 21st century information economy as basic reading-writing literacy has been to the industrial economy of the past two centuries.  According to Larson, STEM literacy is a way of thinking and doing:   

“A person has STEM literacy if she can understand the world around her in a logical way guided by the principals of scientific thought.  A STEM-literate person can think for herself.  She asks critical questions.  She can form hypotheses and seek data to confirm or deny them.  She sees the beauty and complexity in nature and seeks to understand.  She sees the modern world that mankind has created and hopes to use her STEM-related skills and knowledge to improve it.” 

Larson is Professor of Engineering Systems and Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT.  He is a pioneer in applying STEM capabilities to a wide variety of problems in services industries, from urban systems to online learning.  He is the founder and director of LINC - Learning International Network Consortium, a collaboration involving educators from around the world who share best practices on how to best organize higher education distance learning projects in developing countries.  Among LINC’s key projects is Blossoms  - Blended Learning Open Source Science or Math Studies, which is developing a large free repository of video modules created by gifted volunteers from around the world to assist school teachers with math and science courses.

A number of studies have observed that despite the persistently high unemployment and underemployment rates in the US, employers are having trouble filling many positions that require technical skills.  There is a serious skills gap in the country.  Not enough students are majoring in STEM fields.  They are not even taking STEM courses in school, - be it high school, post-secondary education or college.  As a result, their skills don’t match those needed for the jobs that are most in demand. 

Why the mismatch?  Why don’t more young people select STEM careers, or at least STEM courses that would better prepare them for the job market?  In his column, Larson discusses a few misperceptions that shed light on these questions. 

“Engineering is all about hardware, gadgets and circuits,” is one of them.  He mentions bioengineering and systems engineering as examples of STEM disciplines that are far removed from hardware, circuits and algorithms.  Bioengineering is a growing discipline that deals with the application of engineering to problems in medicine and biology, including the design and development of new diagnostic and therapeutic devices, synthetic biomaterial, artificial tissues and organs and drug delivery systems.  Systems engineering is an interdisciplinary field that applies engineering processes to the design and management of complex systems in a variety of areas including healthcare, education, energy and finance. 

Larsen writes: “The ‘engineering mentality’ and approach are needed in virtually all aspects of society.  This is good news for both men and women whose career goals are more towards societal improvement than techno-gadget creation.” 

“I do not plan to be an engineer or scientist, so STEM is not for me,” is perhaps an even bigger misperception since it applies to just about everyone in the job market, not just those pursuing STEM careers. 

Prior to the Industrial Revolution, only a small percentage of the world’s population was literate.  Literacy rates increased throughout the 19th century, as people started moving from the countryside to towns and cities for the job opportunities opening up in the newly industrialized societies.  Many of these new jobs, especially the higher paying ones, required the ability to read and write.  With the rise of universal education in almost all countries around the world, literacy rates have steadily gone up over the past hundred years.

But, almost everyone would agree that there is a big difference between being proficient at reading and writing and being a playwright, literary critic, book editor or journalist.  The skills requirement are radically different.  But, when it comes to STEM, students don’t often appreciate the difference between achieving a modicum of STEM proficiency and pursuing a STEM profession.  Many students avoid taking STEM courses because they have no intention of becoming engineers, scientists, programmers or technicians of any sort.  While everyone agrees that basic literacy is critical for just about any job, there is little appreciation that being STEM literate is increasingly important to qualify for a wide variety of jobs. 

Unfortunately, many STEM professionals and educators contribute to this misperception.  They don’t do a particularly good job explaining to young people, their parents and the world at large what we mean by STEM literacy.  The have not adequately made the case why quantitative reasoning, familiarity with sophisticated machines, and dealing with complex systems, problems and decisions are important job skills in our fast changing, complex world. 

Our daily lives are now full of numbers and statistics.  Quantitative reasoning skills are important for many jobs, so we can understand what is going on and be able to adequately explain it to colleagues and customers.  They are also very important in our daily lives.  For example, understanding the interest rates we pay for our credit cards, car loan or mortgage requires a fair degree of quantitative reasoning.  If we don’t do such reasoning by ourselves, we are at the mercy of others doing it for us who may not always have our best interests in mind.

We are surrounded by smart machines, - cars, music players, TVs, video recorders, smartphones, PCs, the Internet, e-mail, the Web, e-commerce sites, and on and on and on.  They have become indispensable tools at work and at home.  The ability to deal with the sophisticated machines all around and use them effectively to help us address complex problems is another very important STEM skill.   When things go well, they make us much more productive.  But when they don’t, - as complex, smart machines are wont to do, - they are truly frustrating, especially if we are lost and don’t know what to do. 

Dealing with complexity is another very important STEM skill.  Working with complex systems, especially those involving a large numbers of steps or components, require us to have a good overall understanding of the system, so we can adequately plan how to get the work done.  In such a complex world, unanticipated situations often arise that we have not encountered before and thus require good cognitive, problem solving skills.  Similar skills are necessary to help us evaluate the various options involved in making complex decisions.  In general, people who are comfortable dealing with complexity are better able to handle more demanding, higher paying jobs. 

“Becoming knowledgeable about STEM is not about the 0.01% who might become Ph.D. researchers or the 1% who might become engineers,” writes Larson.  “In this data-informed, technology intensive 21st Century the entire populace needs to become STEM literate.  We all need STEM thinking skills.  Many apparently non-STEM jobs have become STEM jobs, especially in the trades. . . .”

“But perhaps the most important reason for everyone to become STEM literate is to build a more informed citizenry.  In that way we individually and collectively become better decision makers about all the options that our world and we face.  STEM is not only for Ph.D. researchers.  It’s for all of us!”

Comments

[Kenny Olmstead]

I agree completely that STEM literacy should be seen as important for everyone. I feel that there are two issues at work here. One is the lack of students actually going into STEM fields. The other is in a way a more subtle problem of showing non-STEM students (and professionals) that the skill-set learned through STEM subjects is applicable in seemingly unrelated fields.

It is this second problem that I find most interesting, as a non-STEM educated professional.

One way I think this can be accomplished in schools is to apply STEM style learning (or STEM tools) to what are seen as "non-STEM subjects." One brief example is sentiment analysis. This is a common way to analyze large bodies of text (usually related to social media) and involves the T and maybe the E. What if you had students in a decidedly non-STEM class like English use sentiment analysis tools? Instead of using it for Twitter, use it for Middlemarch.

Showing students that something as techy as sentiment analysis can be applied in a non-tech field to great results could show them the value of STEM style learning, even if they are going to be novelists some day. The same logic can apply to professionals, every office can be shown that the tools and concepts valued by STEM subjects can be applied virtually anywhere.

[Tracy Carlin]

This article definitely speaks to some work I have been doing at Georgetown. I graduated from college an English major, but my school required classes in the sciences and math for a more well-rounded education. I took calculus, astronomy and environmental science classes to fulfill my graduation requirements. The scientific method and the importance of research was drilled into me just as much as the importance of syntax and metaphor in literature. I still utilize those STEM skills to approach problems in my daily life.

What's scary is that some not only do not appreciate the importance of STEM, they actively discourage it. Worse, they are trying to make it a point of policy. Here's an article from teh Washington Post regarding the newest platofrm of the Texas GOP - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/texas-gop-rejects-critical-thinking-skills-really/2012/07/08/gJQAHNpFXW_blog.html

"Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority."

How can we innovate if we don't challenge fixed beliefs?

[Brendan Kirwin]

This is an excellent summary of why we are falling behind when it comes to innovation. Your point about the misconception of "STEM not being for me" is well taken. But I think one of the things to consider is that most schools in the US do not approach the curriculum from a multidisciplinary standpoint. We go through school with our subjects so siloed that we don't even comprehend how well things are connected. My advice, if students won't go to STEM, bring STEM to the students. Kids in music class could learn about the electronics of electric guitars and amplifiers. Art students could learn about the chemical processes involved in photography. There are all sorts of ways to connect different subjects back to STEM. It won't be enough to have more STEM courses, educators need to rethink how we teach from the ground up.