STEM as innovation in supporting equitable and differentiated instruction in every classroom through place-based education and community practice.

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What can this Website Section do for you?

This website considers the possibilities and tools of how we may engage students more through STEM concepts and place-based learning that incorporates service and career-focused curriculum bridging content in the classroom to student's perceived career goals. This can be done through community relationships with various careers and real-world instruction that takes career focus and introduces students, as early as the beginning of middle grades. The intent of this website is to introduce the interested party to a few research ideas and tools that may help with forming these ideas of where to begin in introducing service and career-focused academies that are partnered with community professionals and organizations. The goal is to help students participate in contextualized real-world instruction and introduce students to various careers and understanding of what classroom content can do for them in their future as lifetime learners and community stewards, regardless of their future goals. In essence, how do we create classrooms that are valuable to all students and provide them with equitable opportunities to participate in an education that prepares them for their futures?

The potential of STEM in creating equitable learning environments through inquiry-based education driven by student choice is far-reaching. So often we think of STEM specific to the disciplines we readily associate with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math); however, I propose that it is as much a pedagogy that is an inquiry-based focus applying the 4C's (Communication, Creativity, Critical Thinking, and Collaboration) to a multidisciplinary and community-based authentic education. It is an opportunity to create equity is not just socioeconomic divisions, but also in cultural and learning level variations where students have lost the value of their education as they perceive their education as disconnected and irrelevant to their future.

STEM is a noun in the sense that it is the disciplines that we associate with the acronym themselves, but also a verb in that it is applying engineering design processes and inquiry-based student-driven learning that creates a bridge and contextualizes what we do in the classroom to potentially every student. This means that it is connecting the academics of the classroom to not only the college career-focused student but also to the vocational student or entrepreneurial student that will open their own business and never go beyond high school education. Furthermore, research tells us that most students have disengaged from their education by the middle grades, and yet many career and service-focused programs are not available until the later high school years.