by Benjamin Hebebrand, Head of School, Quest Academy
Education in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, nowadays
referred to as STEM, has risen to the forefront as a result of poor performance
by U.S. students on international testing in addition to an ever-increasing
need to innovate to remain competitive in a global economy that is migrating
toward ever-increasing levels of automation. A closer look at best practices in gifted science education shows that our field has for a long time embraced the idea of exploratory STEM education.
Exemplary instruction in these subjects, particularly
science, centers on a hands-on approach. The National Research Council in 1996
simply stated that “learning science is something that students do, not something
that is done to them.”
The hands-on approach is absolutely congruent with research
that identifies personality traits of scientists. This research cites qualities
such as “risk-taking, autonomous, unconventional, original, persistent,
attentive toward unusual details, independent, playful, disliking ambiguity,
interested in art/humanities, curious, intellectually courageous, and daring.”
Such qualities do not lend themselves well to traditional
science instruction that first places emphasis on “knowledge of facts, laws,
theories, and applications.” This emphasis has been so heavily imprinted that
the actual playful part of science – the laboratory exercises or activities – has served
the purpose of verification.
Simply completing labs as a means to verify book-learned
concepts and facts is not conducive to shaping scientists to whom we
essentially entrust the notion of problem-solving. Nor does the idea of
verification conjure up images of innovation.
The field of gifted education long ago has identified
problem-solving as a necessary component of high quality science instruction
particularly aimed at gifted students. Robert Sternberg already in 1982 wrote
in a Roeper Review article entitled “Teaching Scientific Thinking to Gifted
Students” that gifted science education should emulate what scientists do and
therefore should focus on “a) problem-finding; b) problem-solving; c) problem
re-evaluation, and d) reporting.” The idea to allow students to identify a
scientific problem rather than being assigned such a problem is nowadays a
central idea in STEM education – quite frankly an idea that has always been
part of science project learning (i.e. high quality science fairs) that is
commonly found in gifted education. Sternberg views problem-solving as “problem
identification, selection of the process for solving, solution monitoring,
responding to feedback, and implementing an action plan,” whereby re-evaluation
“requires analyzing the outcomes that may be expected or unintended.” Clearly,
Sternberg views science instruction as a process that is capped by reporting –
the action that “clarifies thinking and is an integral part of the scientific
process.”
STEM education seeks to employ a design process to enhance
the problem-solving component. By incorporating technology and engineering,
students will design and engineer practical solutions to scientific problems.
The Teaching Institute for Excellence in STEM outlines similar process skills
as Sternberg’s. The components are 1) Identify the Need or Problem; 2) Research
the Need or Problem; 3) Develop Possible Solutions; 4) Select the Best Possible
Solutions; 5) Construct a Prototype; 6) Test and Evaluate the Solution(s); 7)
Communicate the Solution(s); and 8) Re-design.
The added design element in STEM education clearly invokes
the idea of creativity. Design not only is about function, but also form. As
such, STEM nowadays has added the A for Art to form STEAM. The
interdisciplinary nature of STEAM also is a long-held practice in gifted
education – enhancing the learning experience in multi-faceted domains.
