Blogtalkradio: STEM Professional Development

Yesterday, I participated in an interview about the need for STEM education professional development. The interview resides on the Internet as a podcast.

The conversation addressed challenges of providing K-12 educators with necessary resources and professional development to implement STEM curricula. The host posed four discussion questions:

• Why is there a lack of STEM professional development?
• In addition to a lack of funding, what inhibits STEM professional development?
• Can or how will STEM professional development be delivered in an era when professional development is increasingly delivered via the Internet?
• Why do surveys show that the need for STEM professional development is greatest at the elementary level?

Of the three individuals holding the conversation, all of us agreed that there is no substitute for hands-on experiences and human interactions when working with teachers. At the same time, we all acknowledged that budgets for, especially in the present economic environment, continue to limit the types and amount of opportunities for teacher professional development.

The conversation caused me to think about the boom in on-line education. If hands-on, materials-based interactions are the best way to approach STEM professional development for adults, then why such excitement in the education community about resources for teaching that rely on Internet access?

I do not claim to have the answers but I can make a short list of my thoughts on this. Notice that I am not prioritizing or critiquing, just brainstorming:

• Kit-based curricula often includes consumables resulting in an annual expense
• “Technology” has become a synonym for “computer” placing blinders on the variety and nature of experiences that students need
• Computing power continues to grow allowing for more sophisticated interactions that simulate hands-on experiences
• Hands-on, inquiry based activity is often messy, literally and figuratively, where as on-line simulations or interactives pare down the experience to the bare essentials
• There is room in the education industry to develop computer based simulations and interactives adding a new line of products to sell to schools
• Computers have become as common place and as useful as pencils and paper
• Youth are early adopters and adapters of new technology