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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
 

Technology for inclusion with diverse learners

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Are the learning opportunities you are providing in your learning spaces enabling the students with additional needs to succeed, have a voice and demonstrate their learning?

The aim of this post it to share important considerations when introducing a digital technology solution to meet a student’s learning goals based on universal design learning principles that meet the needs and goals of the learner and can be used in the classroom tomorrow.

What is Universal Design for learning?

Universal design for learning is a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people (CAST, 2018).

Planning for inclusive and universally designed learning opportunities that utilise digital technologies can:

  • Enable all the learners to engage in the learning opportunity at their own capacity and ability level;
  • Enable multiple means of access to learning opportunities that suit any learners’ abilities (support or extension);
  • Allow access (how) to information, communication (what) and engagement (why) to be differentiated;
  • Allow any learner using the technology to adjust or modify settings and empowers and enables personalisation to meet an individual’s needs for use

Evaluating digital technology

When considering the introduction of a new digital tool for a student, it is imperative to remember that the innovation is actually the learner being able to utilise the right digital tool to engage, collaborate, learn, create and increase opportunities to think and share in a way that works for them, not the digital tool itself.

Therefore, considerations and conversations are required, and where appropriate, include the learner before a new digital tool is introduced. Knowing the learner’s needs and building rapport is always the first step. After that comes understanding of their challenges and matching the technology to their needs, areas of strength, and learning goals with the aim of building capacity and independence.

Taking the time in the beginning to ask the right questions, find out what the learners goals and environment look like and matching that to the right digital tool before introducing anything new to a student with additional needs can make a significant difference in the successful implementation of the chosen digital tool.  Questions such as:

  • What are the student’s current abilities/areas of strength and capacity?
  • What are the student’s learning goals?
  • What are the teacher’s learning goals for this student?
  • What are the other students doing that this student needs to be able to achieve?
  • What does the student need or want to be able to do that is difficult to accomplish independently at the moment?

There are four reasons to introduce a digital technology tool for a learner in your learning space. The right tool for an individual learner can improve access to the curriculum, enable the learner to experience success and demonstrate their understanding.

  1. Enhance – helps the learner to learn and function more effectively.
  2. Remedial – helps to practice specific skills.
  3. Compensatory – helps to complete activities and tasks with greater independence. For example text to speech software.
  4. Extension – provides opportunities to further extend and explore their learning, knowledge and abilities.

(adapted from Cook, A. M., & Polgar, J. M. (2008). Cook & Hussey’s Assistive Technologies: Principles and Practice, Mosby Elsevier, St.)

There is a myriad of digital tools to support learners with additional needs, to encourage independence, access and inclusivity in the learning environment.  Universally designing a few ways to improve the engagement and inclusion of our most vulnerable learners, utilising digital technology, can make a big impact on the success and enjoyment our students experience.

One useful tool that you may like to consider using to help guide your decision-making process is an evaluation rubric. Using the rubrics touch points to guide considerations and questions about what digital technology tool to introduce to the student and learning environment can be a positive way to ensure all parties involved in making a decision have the same understanding about priorities for the new tool including learning goals or budget considerations.

Over time I ended up creating my own evaluation rubric template for an inclusive technology assessment that works for the specialised field I work in (sensory impairments) which I can adjust to meet the needs of each individual I am working with. If you would like a copy of this please reach out to me.

Joy Zabala and Tony Vincent have extensive experience in the area of inclusive technologies for students and have both created rubrics to guide teachers and leaders through the decision making process. Both Tony and Joy’s websites and resources are worth checking out before you get started. What I like about these two resources in particular is that they key questions in each area guide you into gathering data and information to support the consideration and implementation of appropriate inclusive technologies that focus on the learner, their educational goals and the learning context first. Once goals in this area have been identified, choosing the right technology or app can commence.

Finally, I would like to leave you with this quote from Dr Kevin Maxwell which has been my screen saver on many devices over the years and reminds me each day of why I am an advocate for purposefully using the right digital technology in our learning spaces.

‘Our job is to teach the students we have.
Not the ones we would like to have.
Not the ones we used to have.
Those we have right now.
All of them.’

– Dr. Kevin Maxwell

I’d love to meet you and share our stories at the Leading a Digital School Conference where I am presenting two sessions; Technology for inclusion with diverse learners (Thursday @ 12.10pm) and Digital tool smashing – Learning can include more than APP smashing! (Saturday @ 12.10pm)

References

CAST (2018). UDL and the learning brain. Wakefield, MA: Author. Retrieved from http://www.cast.org/our-work/publications/2018/udl-learning-brain-neuroscience.html

Vincent, T (2012) Ways to evaluate apps. Retrieved from http://learninginhand.squarespace.com/blog/ways-to-evaluate-educational-apps.html

Walker, H. (2011). Evaluating the effectiveness of apps for mobile devices. Journal of Special Education Technology, 26(4), 59-63.

Zabala, J. S. (2005). Ready, SETT, go! Getting started with the SETT framework. Closing the Gap, 23(6), 1-3. Retrieved from  http://www.joyzabala.com/

 

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Digital tool smashing – Learning can include more than APP smashing!

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So, your class has mastered Book Creator for writing a story to share with a real audience, they rock at using Do Ink for green screen movie making and they are all over SeeSaw for recording their learning. It’s time to integrate a few quality apps to take it to the next level.

App Smashing is the process of students utilising a core of quality apps that complement and enhance each other to create inspiring and engaging ways that not only demonstrate their learning but showcases it and allows you to assess their understanding and skills.  The term App smashing was coined by Greg Kulowiec (USA) in 2013. Laura Cummings has a great blog post about App smashing if you’d like to know more about setting parameters and supporting app smashing in your learning space. Whilst this post focuses on the power of combining iOS apps in an education setting, over time the term app smashing has also come to include the use of more than just iPads and at times more than one device type, for example using a Chrome book,  and an iPad to create a finished product.

Students intuitively explore apps long before we’ve had time as a teacher to offer step by step instructions and often find an apps limitations and special features before we’ve fully explored the apps learning and integration potential. Students also often soon realise one specific app doesn’t allow them to produce a final piece of work or product with all the features they need or want and intuitively experimenting with a variety of apps to create their final product.  They key to app smashing is the camera roll or the ability to save a photo, a video, an image you’ve sourced or created and importing it into another app to combine, manipulate to create something new that wasn’t possible to make happen in either of the other apps on their own. App smashing it more than utilising the features and functions of more than one app to reach an objective.

The power of app smashing is the transformation of projects into rich media creations and encourages the seamless use of digital tools for learning. The two key elements for success when app smashing with iPads are the camera roll and the ability to share your creations. When you first introduce the concept of app smashing to your class, depending on their age and familiarity with the apps, you may recommend and demonstrate how to utilise specific apps together to create a finished product. Eventually, however, the goal is for students to consider the assessment criteria and decide themselves which apps will work best for their learning task or project idea by considering what the various apps features are and which one, two, or even four apps would work well together to suit their needs.

Why App Smash?

  1. encourage creative and imaginative thinking
  2. Support collaboration
  3. Students have choice, control and ownership in their learning process
  4. encourage critical thinking
  5. help students construct knowledge and demonstrate deep learning
  6. help maximize the potential of digital tools by combining features and functions.
  7. Allows creativity to shine and allows students to demonstrate their learning in their preferred communication mode. For example, speaking (audio or video), writing (typing text or with a stylus) or drawing.
  8. Provides opportunities to purposefully create and share with a real audience
  9. Empower students to share their voice and showcase their learning.

Dr. Monica Burns (ClassTechTips.com) recently wrote an e-book How to use App Smashing as an assessment tool full of ideas for using book creator as a formative assessment tool.

Combining apps for innovative project ideas

  1. Create a multimedia book (topic/ theme can cover any curriculum or interest area)
  2. Podcast / radio show/ review (book, movie, TV etc.)
  3. Interactive comic
  4. Student created biography interview videos

A few of my favourite Apps

With links to Apple App Store. Those that I know are also available on other platforms I have identified.

Tips

  1. Communicate clear assessment criteria to your students.
  2. Make sure students know how much time they have to complete the task or project.
  3. Make it a clear and easy process for students submit to you finished work created digitally.

I hope that this post has given you enough ideas to start app smashing with your students, encouraging learning and creativity in your classroom. If you need more inspiration I recommend checking out Jornea Erwin aka @Savvy_Educator, or the #AppSmashing hashtag on Twitter.

I will be presenting about these ideas and others at the Leading a Digital School Conference this year, come along and say hi – www.iwb.net.au/digital/program

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Innovation and Creativity…IMO

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I don’t know about you, but I have seen this before. I have been this before. It’s an easy trap to fall into. You unwrap the bright and shiny new ‘thing’ that will transform your classroom. The solution to a problem we never knew we had. And the gateway to a whole range of new and exciting problems that didn’t exist before but now do. If only it did what we wanted it to do or even delivered some of the expected outcomes?!

Design has many names. Many ruses. So many different acronyms.  At its heart, though, it seeks to do the same thing, whatever the label. Design is about solving problems. It is about solutions. Testing solutions. Improving solutions. “Design is the link between innovation and creativity, taking thoughts and exploring the possibilities and constraints associated with products or systems, allowing designers to redefine and manage the generation of further thought through prototyping, experimentation and adaptation. It is human-centred and focuses on the needs, wants and limitations of the end user.” (IB Design Guide 2015, p. 4) Once we scratch below the surface and take away the shiny things, Design is problem solving methodology and technology is useful, only if it too, solves a problem.

“Why?” before “What?” If I had a mantra, it would be this. ‘Why’ am I doing this has to come before the ‘what’ do I need to make it happen. I cannot solve a problem without knowing what I am trying to solve.

I see Innovation as the output of creativity. The product of creativity. If creativity is the noun…then the act of this creativity finds its place through innovative thinking and doing. At times we blame lack of resources on our ability to innovate when in fact it’s the constraints that inspire innovation. It is not about what I have, but what I do not have that inspires innovation. And this drives our learning. To be innovative sometimes we need to limit what we have, what we get and what we give. We challenge our students to think. When you break that down. Challenging students to think shouldn’t be outside the realms of what we do, but it often is. And here is the response.

The five cogs of innovation

“Tell me how to do it?” is the cry of the student who is stuck.

“Well I could. Or you could just try something different. Have a go at solving the problem yourself. It doesn’t matter if you get it wrong. You just need to attempt something different to what you have already done.”

And at times they do. While others will not even budge. Fear of getting it wrong has been smashed into them so many times that the thought of not getting it right the first time overrides any natural curiosity. Some students would prefer getting in trouble for not trying, not even attempting to get it right, because its beats the shame of getting it wrong. And that says something about our schools. Our system.

Something needs to change.

Innovation as a classroom subject pushes our students to think they can, rather than believe they cannot and then asks them to attempt things they may not have otherwise tried to do. And the results are things we could not have imagined. Every class is different. New leaders emerge. Students in control of what they learn and how they learn. Our dream is students develop a mindset that they will attempt anything. No matter what they have been told in the past and no matter what others might think they can do. It’s the mindset I want our Design teachers to have. To take risks. To be different. To try something outrageous. And who knows what might happen?

Looking forward to talking more about this at the Leading a Digital School Conference….. And moving forward together.

Matt Zarb

Reference:

IB Design Guide © International Baccalaureate Organization, 2015

Saving Swimmers in the Flipping Pool

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It has occurred to me that some days I am like the pool lifeguard, in a flipping pool. I’m up there on my high chair, I’ve got the pink zinc across Help Saving Swimmers in the Flipping Poolmy face like war paint. I have my whistle for the troublemakers, I have my flotation device for those who entered the pool and weren’t ready to. I’m also there to support the new swimmers and to provide slow lanes for the more adept swimmer who have been at the pool a long time and are keen to keep swimming but at their own pace. I’m also clearing lanes for those swimmers who are keen to take on Michael Phelps and occasionally get a leg cramp. I look after them all.

I am privileged to have teachers honestly share their concerns about teaching with devices and associated organisation systems with me. These concerns centre around the expense to families, robotic replacement and how to make a measurable difference with the devices. The transformation that the journey of flipping brings to these challenges is so positive.

It has literally, for some, been the difference between quitting or remaining employed. Time and time again I have been told that before starting to use flipping, resignation letters were written. PLD has turned this around and reignited a passion for teaching, teachers often use the lifesaving reference, “Thanks, this is a lifesaver.”

Teachers frequently begin their digital journey, worried that being a 1:1 device environment would be another extra, in a place where there is already a deficit of time and energy. However, as we near the end of our 1st full year promoting inflipping with KAR, I am finding that this is changing. There is now a view that digital is the nuts and bolts of being able to flip and still have time to do the extra things that teachers always dream of doing.

The flipped online PLD courses and face to face training that I do, has given teachers the confidence to bridge the digital divide and the pedagogy to feel confident that embracing a digital classroom can maximise learning not just enhance distractions.

Teachers are embracing a structure that allows them to teach and meet all of the different goals and individual education plans without putting themselves through the mincer. I personally used to give the analogy that it was like facing a very hungry nest with baby birds all squawking at the same time. Now with the ease of Google Classroom and inflipping as one teacher put it to me today, “The kids have lots of learning chances, as many times as they need.”

But “it just makes sense” is another thing I am often told usually with a lament that why was this not shared sooner? In my role across many different schools, I have not had one teacher ever come back to me and state that they disagreed with the notion of inflipping or that the approach could not assist their practice in some way.The leadership in the cluster of schools has been exceptional. It is a fantasy to dump devices into the hands of students and expect staff to miraculously instigate innovative pedagogies. Staff have been given the time and support to trial practice and learn just as we would hope happens in classrooms with students.

Digital immersion is consistent with the virus model. The virus of excitement. This involves seeking out teachers who are keen and open to trial new things. Effort is put into engaging these staff as early adopters. The teachers you know like to explore the deep end of the pool. Once these classrooms are underway with the right support, the next tier of staff will

Virus included in the Flipping Pool

want to see what all the excitement is about. Adults all subscribe to the Keeping Up with the Jones’ theory and thus the virus will spread. The excitement of staffroom talk regarding the success of the inflipping is also key to this virus spreading and student success will also provide a motivator.

We have started small with teachers choosing a curriculum area they are confident with and then inflipping 1 unit or 1 groups tasks. VERY VERY quickly this escalated due to student success.

I have found that by assisting as many staff as possible to complete the level 1 Flipped Course there becomes a shared language and pedagogy for staff to scaffold each other in shared learning, “techy tips” and resources. We have also used differentiated teacher PLD days to engage and motivate staff. This has culminated in a mini-conference with staff from my cluster sharing with others including staff from other schools. The power of teacher led PLD for teachers is undeniable as is using an open classroom strategy where amazing practitioners welcome observer teachers into their rooms. The level of awhi (support) that this collegial support brings to a school on a shared journey is inspiring to be a part of.

When teachers share success with me, with as much enthusiasm as the children they teach, you know the passion for education has been reignited. Active learning inquiry, thinking based projects, 20% time had almost been driven out of education in a relentless pursuit of higher reading, writing and math grades. The joy and interest these pedagogies can bring to a classroom and to student learning is mirrored by the engagement and enthusiasm teachers have for motivated learners. The boredom of drill and skill …page 23 in your textbook practice cuts both ways. Teachers who are inflipping in our cluster now have the time to do the stuff that sets minds churning and creativity is making a wildly organic come back.

Quite apart from the first-hand observations I have made, where teachers are brimming with excitement, is the depth of worldwide research and practice. As a leader and facilitator, a solid platform from which to engage in what is, for our region, a very new shift in practice.

The foundations that the FLGI online course structure provides affords a differentiated scale that makes this an extremely useful resource to augment my inflpped PLD.

So I’ll continue to support and watch from my life guard chair. I’ll enjoy the view as the people in my pool are once more becoming enthusiastic about what they love to do. I’ll watch as they relax and become more confident in their careers. I’ll be happy with the spread of this virus in my pool. There will be no more semi drownings on my watch.