Focus on STEM: Building Future Leaders

March 10, 2015

A recent gift of $500,000 from a generous couple has established an endowment for STEM education at BVU. This endowment will provide valuable resources to better prepare BVU education students to teach STEM in K-12. It will also provide the opportunity for outreach to area schools to provide training, tools, and development for current K-12 teachers to help them deliver a strong STEM curriculum.

STEM is an acronym for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and is an interdisciplinary approach to learning where rigorous academic concepts are coupled with real-world lessons as students apply those subjects in contexts that make connections between school, community, work, and the global enterprise.

Support for STEM education has come from the scientific community, from business and industry, from learning theorists, and from schools and colleges of education across the country. BVU's goal is to create the STEM-ready educators to bring this method of educating to the classroom and encourage young minds to explore STEM-related careers by facilitating STEM learning experiences.

With a strong School of Science and a STEM expert in the School of Education, BVU is well-positioned to play a leadership role in the deployment of STEM programming for teachers.

BVU's STEM expert is Dr. John Bedward, assistant professor of education – STEM. He is on the state task force to re-write Iowa's science standards to affect STEM interdisciplinary integration, on the STEM Champion council to work through initiatives for diversity in STEM and STEM endorsements for teachers, and is a member of the Iowa Governor's STEM Council and the Northwest Iowa STEM hub.

"My active engagement in several STEM initiatives ensures that BVU students remain current as to the policies and STEM initiatives that may impact their careers and assists BVU in establishing a robust STEM program to attract and retain future BVU teacher- leaders," says Bedward.

The STEM perspective is a compliment to the classic disciplinary perspective offered by science education departments. "Not unlike science experts who cross disciplinary boundaries en route to discovery, building theory, and solving problems to deep-seated questions and societal issues, STEM is explicitly an integrated approach to furthering our understanding of the natural and human-made world," says Bedward. "The tools and processes of science inquiry, engineering design, creative problem solving, and STEM literacy are used to equip students with a better understanding of how science is practiced and its impact on the world around us."

To facilitate problem-based learning, STEM learning highlights and demonstrates connections within and between disciplines. That integration enables teachers to lead investigations with students in their classrooms, creating an environment of discovery and constructing knowledge instead of one-sided classroom lectures.

"STEM takes abstract theory and puts it into application, so students can see how science and engineering can enhance their literacy and math skills or other subjects," says Bedward. "Through STEM, students get practical exposure to what a physicist does every day and a way to see behind the curtain as to what a profession is really like."

Secondary science education teachers, living in small rural districts, are often asked to teach two core science areas, so the School of Education, in collaboration with the School of Science, is developing a cross-discipline science concentration major to meet these unique needs.

"Currently, secondary education majors complete one or two science endorsements, which may increase their undergraduate degree program by up to a year," says Bedward. "Instead, with an all science secondary education major, the graduate would be able to complete the program within a four-year period, be more marketable and better prepared for the range of demands unique to a rural setting."

Integration with STEM extends beyond the School of Science. "When it comes to STEM, all subject areas are involved," says Bedward. "For instance, climate change discussions involve other disciplines, as does research on how to solve community and social issues."