Obstacles and Solutions for Integrating Technology into a STEM Classroom
STEM education is already a daunting task. The course work should be rigorous and relevant to students and the community. Community involvement in the STEM program is key to developing a successful program. One of the biggest obstacles facing STEM education is the Technology aspect of STEM. Technology can pose issues anywhere with funding being tight. The funding to maintain a well kept laboratory of computers, electronic kits, robotics, and shop equipment is almost impossible for schools to budget. Outside of technology it's difficult to find an educator that is comfortable teaching a course that requires flexibility and experimentation for a successful STEM environment. The teacher of a STEM will be learning with the students; it's almost impossible to know everything about STEM.
Possible Solutions
Technology
Technology is expensive, but there is always ways of procuring funds for education. One way is to involve the community businesses in the decision making process of types of STEM course they want in their local school system. Generally, local business have a budget of funds that they can donate to school systems to programs that they believe will help their company. For instance, Toyota has several grants for STEM programs. They have one for $25,000 for three years for programs that start a Project Lead the Way Computer Integrated Manufacturing course. They believe that this course offers significant learning that will feed into their AMT programs that they use to develop their engineers. The AMT program is where a student will work for a specific company (Toyota or other FAME partner) for three days a week and the other two days they will be taking classes that where developed by the companies to teach the workers skills that they need them to know for specific job opportunities at their company.
References
Roblyer, M.D. (2016). Integrating educational technology into teaching (7th Ed.) Upper
Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc.
Kentucky Fame
http://www.kyfame.com/
James, you mentioned that the teacher in a STEM classroom will often be learning an evolving curriculum alongside students. In this way, STEM tech-integration feels like the most organic marriage of education and technology. The concept of the AMT program feels like it is ahead of its time in the sense that it is a blended class, but I'm a little skeptical of a corporation's involvement with education. I sense that the STEM field is so closely tied to engineering corporations that this sort of program is an inevitability, but it's just another element of education to keep an eye on that will need to evolve with the changing times.
ReplyDeleteJames, you mentioned that the teacher in a STEM classroom will often be learning an evolving curriculum alongside students. In this way, STEM tech-integration feels like the most organic marriage of education and technology. The concept of the AMT program feels like it is ahead of its time in the sense that it is a blended class, but I'm a little skeptical of a corporation's involvement with education. I sense that the STEM field is so closely tied to engineering corporations that this sort of program is an inevitability, but it's just another element of education to keep an eye on that will need to evolve with the changing times.
ReplyDeleteJames,
ReplyDeleteYour blog highlights the major consideration of funding for the use of technology in the classroom. Beyond just having the funding to purchase the initial equipment outlay, maintence, software, hardware upgrades along with training can each be a significant investment. I suspect this will be a evolving issue for schools as we move forward with greater technology use in the workplace. The AMT program sounds like a good investment into the development of the workforce. Scott