New York Times examines the state of STEM education
DOI: 10.1063/PT.4.2561
In surveying science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education, the 3 September New York Times chose ‘Learning what works’ as its theme, emphasizing increasing use of biomedicine’s technique of randomized clinical trials to learn what works in STEM pedagogy. Concerning more than 15 articles—text and illustrations taking up nearly all of the eight full pages in the ‘Science Times’ section—the Times declared, ‘scientists and educators are disproving myths and unlocking mysteries about what works.’
Most of the reporting, however, actually engaged not new STEM teaching methods scientifically validated by clinical trials, but the usual analysis based on experimentation, intuition, trial and error, common sense and professional judgment. Either way, the Times‘s STEM update is likely drawing attention and interest from STEM stakeholders and advocates.
The section began with two front-page articles. Concerning clinical trials, the headline on one enthused ‘Guesses and hype give way to data .’ It began by asking the question framed in the overall theme: ‘What works in science and math education?’ The reporter, Gina Kolata, observed, ‘Until recently, there had been few solid answers—just guesses and hunches, marketing hype and extrapolations from small pilot studies.’ She spotlighted the Education Department’s Institute of Education Sciences (IES), which is supporting 175 randomized studies. She stressed the difficulty of conducting such studies in pedagogy.
Kolata also summed up the outlook for STEM’s new knowledge-generation practice:
[W]ith a growing body of evidence on what works, researchers wonder how they can get educators and the public to pay attention.
‘It’s fascinating what a secret this is,’ said Robert Slavin, director of the Center for Research and Reform in Education at Johns Hopkins University.
‘If you talk to your seatmate on an airplane,’ he continued, ‘100 times out of 100 they will not have heard of it. Invariably they will have loads of opinions about what schools should or shouldn’t do, and they are utterly unaware and uninterested in the idea that there is actual evidence.’
The other first-page ‘Science Times’ article described not a randomized clinical trial but a two-decade experiment. The Times summarized it: ‘Adopting rigorous standards, and sticking with them while giving teachers some breathing room, has helped Massachusetts’ students rise to No. 1 in the nation on science and math achievement.’ If Massachusetts were a country, the article said, ‘its eighth graders would rank second in the world in science, behind only Singapore, according to Timss—the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study.’ The state’s set of 1993 reforms came from a Democratic legislature and a Republican governor. The three core components are money, ambitious standards and ‘a high-stakes test that students [must] pass before collecting their high school diplomas.’ The article noted that the reforms did not involve vouchers, school closures for poor performance, tenure elimination or merit pay.
Clinical trials saw little mention after the first page. Paulo Blikstein, director of Stanford University’s Transformative Learning Technologies Laboratory, commented , ‘In a controlled study conducted in our lab we found a statistically significant increase of 25 percent in performance when open-ended exploration came before text or video study rather than after it.’ The article ‘Cognitive science meets pre-algebra ’ described an IES study in Tampa, Florida, to determine the usefulness of ‘interleaving,’ the technique of mixing related concepts within math lessons rather than engaging them only one at a time.
Other articles also looked at math pedagogy. ‘Fewer topics, covered more rigorously ’ reported on New York’s Common-Core-Standards-related, statewide shift involving ‘cutting back on a hodgepodge of topics and delving deeper into central concepts.’ The hope is to induce deeper understanding. Another piece looked at field tests of touch-screen apps.
Concerning possible benefits for students and teachers from direct contact with scientists, the Times reported the views of Alan Leshner, chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science; Rita Colwell, who formerly directed the National Science Foundation; Michael Summers, a biochemist at the Howard Hughes Institute; and Steven Strogatz, a Cornell University mathematician.
Concerning the benefits of hands-on active or interactive learning, the Times included a piece contrasting American approaches with rote Chinese STEM instruction, a report about involving very small children in rudimentary forms of computer programming, and a mention of the view of physics Nobel laureate Carl Wieman.
The coverage also included articles not fitting with any general theme but engaging issues of acknowledged STEM importance. One showed how the focus at ‘Sesame Street’ is being widened concerning concepts from nature, science, math and engineering. Another profiled Eugenie Scott, who works to uphold science over creationism in schools. Still another told about students who stand up against antiscience.
It seems worth adding that something brand new appeared in the coverage. A Natalie Angier piece , besides examining the mystery of women’s lagging aspiration for taking up STEM despite solid aptitude, introduced a word apparently coined by the author: quantipathy, which seems to mean ‘dislike of quantification.’ Will that turn out to be a lasting contribution from the Times‘s update on STEM education?
Angier does have a special interest in words. The coverage also excerpted her 2010 commentary disparaging what she called ‘the odious and increasingly pervasive term ‘STEM education.’'
Steven T. Corneliussen, a media analyst for the American Institute of Physics, monitors three national newspapers, the weeklies Nature and Science, and occasionally other publications. He has published op-eds in the Washington Post and other newspapers, has written for NASA’s history program, and is a science writer at a particle-accelerator laboratory.