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Promoting engagement and more importantly retention of girls in STEM

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To reshape and better up skill the future workforce, the focus must begin with education, as “STEM education underpins innovation and plays a critical role in economic and business growth” (PwC, 2015). Further, education in STEM is recommended as being the key to broadening community understandings of what STEM is saying and doing about the complex problems facing society, now and in the future (Office of the Chief Scientist, 2013).

Young people need to be digitally competent, adaptable and adopt core competencies that will enable them to respond to the ever-changing workforce (CEDA, 2015). STEM is a key driver of innovation and entrepreneurship that can significantly impact on the economy (PwC, 2015) and 21st century skills are recognised as a key component within a STEM skills set that enable young people to achieve success in our evolving workforce (World Economic Forum, 2016).

Increasing the engagement of young people in STEM will enable the building of aspirations for a lifelong journey in STEM. There are currently inequities that exist in STEM in Australia. Girls, students from low socio-economic status backgrounds, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and students from non-metropolitan areas are currently less likely to engage in STEM education and are at higher risk of not developing high capabilities in STEM-related skills (Education Council, 2015). As a result, these groups are more likely to miss out on the opportunities STEM-related occupations can offer.

To increase our STEM workforce, a priority needs to be made to harness the STEM talents within these groups. Currently, only 16% of STEM qualified people in Australia are female (Office of the Chief Scientist, 2016). Besides there being the requirement for equity in the workforce in terms of pay and career progression for women (Prinsley, et.al., 2016), a significant priority needs to made to promote the engagement and retention of underrepresented groups in STEM.

Practical insights for implementing STEM programs: targeting girls

There are a diverse range of barriers and drivers that inhibit or enhance the engagement and retainment of girls in STEM-related pathways. The drivers often vary depending on the barriers that arise. The diversity of these barriers vary from country to country and for girls of different backgrounds. This issue deserves dedicated research to be completed within the Australian context to best identify the specific barriers that exist for girls in this country, and the key drivers for engaging Australian girls. Through the Fellowship research, observations were made around the key challenges and strategies required to engage girls from the perspective of the organisations visited in different countries.

Challenges/Barriers observed for girls engaging with STEM

  • The fear of failure and lack of confidence of young girls in STEM
  • The lack of relevance to everyday life, STEM being an abstract construct
  • Lack of links to the ‘humanness’ around STEM
  • Parents/Caregivers lack of understanding and therefore lack of support towards STEM pathways
  • Misconceptions and stereotypes perceptions around STEM industries and professions
  • Lack of funds to access opportunities for disadvantaged girls
  • Lack of role models in STEM industries and post-secondary education, particularly in leadership positions
  • Challenges around the culture of STEM industries and support for women to thrive
  • Lack of clarity on STEM careers (including job titles) and professional activities.

Messaging: Effective messaging can attract girls to consider STEM and help girls to envision themselves as STEM professionals, as well as help to support their key influencers. This includes the consideration of effective messaging strategies from marketing to role model interactions.

Key tips for effective messaging:

  • Use adjectives to describe and characterise STEM professional roles and activities.
  • Have role models and volunteers share their interests and activities outside of their STEM-related activities.
  • Develop resources for individual STEM fields for targeted messaging and information.
  • Evaluate STEM program and organisation media for unconscious bias, and ensure diverse representation in media.

Girls-only opportunities: Offering girls-only experiences and learning spaces provides the opportunity for girls to be empowered and feel comfortable to question, experiment and lead in STEM. By structuring these safe environments girls are more willing to try and experiment with STEM.

Key tips to design positive girls-only opportunities and spaces:

  • Provide a comfortable and safe learning environment.
  • Create a gender-neutral environment, free of “STEM stereotypes”.
  • Provide opportunities for girls to connect with female mentors in STEM.
  • Ensure the environment supports girls to try, play and fail without judgement.

Family involvement: The involvement of family, especially parents, in STEM learning experiences is invaluable in providing support for girls engaging in STEM experiences. Parents are role models and key influencers of a girl’s career pathway considerations. Involving family in STEM, not only enriches a girl’s experiences, it also connects STEM into the home.

Key tips to promote family involvement:

  • Host orientation and family evenings that family members can be involved in.
  • Provide updates for family members on achievements and opportunities Authentic connections: Connecting with real world experiences that make an impact and diverse female experts for support and inspiration, can provide girls with authentic STEM connections and opportunities that promote sustained engagement.

Authentic Connections: Connecting young people with real world experiences that make an impact and diverse female experts for support and inspiration, can provide girls with authentic STEM connections and opportunities that promote sustained engagement.

Key tips to enable girls to build authentic connections:

  • Industry visits and experiences.
  • STEM projects that solve compelling problems, with real life contexts for ‘social good’.
  • Mentorship programs where girls link with diverse female STEM experts.

This blog includes excerpts from Engaging the Future of STEM. Authors: Ms Sarah Chapman & Dr Rebecca Vivian. A study of international best practice for promoting the participation of young people, particularly girls, in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM). This research was conducted as part of the 2016 Barbara Cail STEM Fellowship and funded by the Australian Government (Office for Women, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet), in partnership with the Chief Executive Women (CEW) Ltd.

Come and meet me at the Leading a Digital School Conference where I will be providing authentic international and national examples that exemplify the promotion of engagement and retention of girls in STEM.

For reference list please refer to: Engaging the Future of STEM
 

STEAM In The Family

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One of the problems we have in education at the moment is that the curriculum in some areas is developing so rapidly that parents and the wider community have trouble keeping up. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the STEM subjects area. Where once we created electrical circuits using alkaline batteries, bulbs in bulb holders and wires, current students might be using coin batteries, LED’s, conductive tape or small modular components that connect together via magnets to complete similar and at times more complex tasks.

For most parents, technology and engineering were simply not part of their school curriculum. Whilst they may have since learned how to use computers and other devices, the Digital Technologies curriculum advocates that simply using a tool is a very base level skill. Instead the curriculum advocates that students need to learn “how to use technologies to create innovative solutions that meet current and future needs.” To do this students need to understand and use computational thinking. Understanding digital systems and importantly how data and information can be used within these systems is a key to being able to create such innovative solutions.

Teaching approaches are evolving too. In the not too distant past the Science and Maths curriculum was often built primarily around content that could be tested and assessed as known or unknown. Whilst knowledge is still an important component of these subjects process skills as highlighted above, creative use of such skills are now seen as just as important.

The whole notion of STEM or STEAM is also a novelty to many parents more used to notions of discipline based or homogeneous work practices. That a scientist now uses digital componentry more often than a test tube or beaker can be quite revelatory. Understanding how easily data can be captured and not only analysed but used for both ‘good and evil’ can be almost mind blowing.

One of the fun ways to address issues surrounding STEAM is via a family engagement program based on the popular Family Science or Maths programs. Though there are a number of models for running these programs the common feature is a parent, (or other significant adult), working alongside a student on an open ended activity. In some cases programs are run after school, in other variants activities are distributed as a task to be worked on by a parent and child at home together, (note this alternative should not be seen as homework).

The best Family STEAM activities are as open ended as possible but should be capable of being ‘completed’ in a short amount of time. They need to be hands-on and minds-on. If the task is also counter-intuitive then that is even better. In most cases program participants will move through a number of activities which may highlight specific features, eg different aspects of a particular curriculum or principles which underpin practice. This highlights an important caveat, it is important to point out that the activities used in Family STEAM events aren’t how the whole curriculum will or should manifest itself in the classroom. The best STEAM activities involve real problems that are multi-faceted requiring a process approach over an extended period of time and which may not necessarily result in a ‘positive’ outcome. Even the best organised Family STEAM event can’t hope to cover all this detail.

I have had the pleasure to have been involved in a number of Family STEAM events ranging from science based programs through events focussed specifically on technology and more. As a result I have sourced numerous activities that can be readily used to run a program or series of events. These include introductory activities that require minimal instruction or materials such as the following.

In addition to these ‘starters’ programs usually include longer form activities such as Blast Off. Typically these require a facilitator that can be another teacher or an interested parent or community volunteer. Such activities should run for 15-20 minutes. Ideally the activity leader will have tried the activity before the event and also be prepared with some further challenges in mind. In the example below you might ask participants who have a ‘working model” how they might modify it to make the plane go further or whether it is possible to make the plane do tricks. Alternatively participants might be asked to make suggestions for modifications or games that might involve the planes.

In the case of many activities the question of how or why things work is often raised. Some leaders like to include explanations of the science or technology behind their allotted activity. I often prefer to leave things as a question that is open during the event but which can be researched and reported on later in class.   

Where possible I have always encouraged the teachers of students involved in the event, (as well as some of the support staff such as librarians and art teachers etc), to be the facilitators for the program. Generally this means that they only have to ‘learn’ one activity that may be repeated a number of times during the event. I’ve found that doing this can serve as great professional development for teachers, who are unsure of aspects of the curriculum and/or the approaches used to teach STEAM.

As suggested earlier Family STEAM events can be a powerful addition to a school program. Whilst they may take time to organise and facilitate, in my experience the benefits always outweigh any cost in time and materials. In addition to the benefits listed above such events can be used to showcase how school science programs can be hands-on and inquiry-based and fun and educational at the same time. Where teachers are used as facilitators the events also provide an opportunity for they and parents to interact in a relaxed situation. Students also gain a sense of community outside school hours.

Most importantly Family STEAM events encourage and foster interaction between parents and children in a non-judgmental space as they enjoy fun educational experiences together, not just doing homework. Parents and students get to see that science is all around us, is achievable and is FUN.

I’m conducting a range of workshops at the Leading a Digital School Conference that map to the Digital Technologies Curriculum. Come along and join me.