Join us on Friday at 3 PM in 103A Walker Hall to hear
Dr. Tracie McLemore Salinas speak on a Framework for STEM Teaching and Leadership
The acronym STEM brings with it a number of interpretations, but it is often simply used as an umbrella under which various combinations of the four indicated disciplines - Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics - may fall. As a result there are few cohesive conceptualizations of the sum of the four disciplines, making policy and practice discussions challenging, particularly for teachers seeking to create meaningful, STEM-integrated experiences for their students. In this talk, I present a historical view of the concept of STEM and share some of the contextual factors that are particular to the teaching and learning of STEM. Further, I propose a framework for conceptualizing STEM disciplines for education that relies on the practices inherent within each discipline and those common to all. I report on progress in using this framework with teachers in various settings and plans for its use in the future, particularly in developing trajectories for STEM learning across grade levels and in international settings.