STEM Education
and The Common Core
State Standards
January 16, 2013
Jessica Bianculli
“Achieving Beyond Expectations”
What Does STEM Stand For?
Science
Technology
Engineering
Mathematics
Common Core/ STEM Connection
Science – Technology – Engineering – Math
 View the standards through a lens of inquiry-based instruction
 Focus on cross-curricular connections, problem solving, &
content-area literacy
 Real-world application and analysis of content knowledge
 Student-centered learning environment
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STEM Education
A transformation from the typical teacher-centered classroom
to:
 Student-centered learning
Driven by:
 problem-solving
 discovery
 exploratory learning
 active engagement
How can the CCSS lead the way?
What does the Common Core have to say?
Mission Statement: The Common Core State Standards provide
a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected
to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to
help them. The standards are designed to be robust and
relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills
that our young people need for success in college and careers.
With American students fully prepared for the future, our
communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in
the global economy.
5
Common Core: Habits of a Mathematically Expert Student
The Common Core proposes a set of Mathematical Practices that all
teachers should develop in their students:
1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them
2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively
3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of
others
4. Model with mathematics
5. Use appropriate tools strategically
6. Attend to precision
7. Look for and make use of structure
8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning
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Attending to the Practice Standards
Connecting subject areas and real-world problems
Posing authentic problems…
Using authentic tools…
And engaging in authentic processes…
To make authentic products…
Standford’s SparkTruck
 “When kids are successful in school, that’s great. But we’re
interested in seeing kids fail.”
– Eugene Korsunskiy
http://sparktruck.org/about
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Standford’s SparkTruck
 “What we’re doing is creating a prototyping mind-set. You try
something, you fail at something, you keep trying. We want
kids to know it’s ok to make mistakes along the way.”
 Elements of Innovation
• Brainstorming
• Teamwork
• Prototyping
• Invention
• Building
• Sharing
Source: Spirit Southwest Airlines Magazine, January 2013
It’s a Gas, Gas, Gas by David Hochman
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Bloom’s Taxonomy: Revised
Creating
Generating new ideas, products, or ways of viewing things
Designing, constructing, planning, producing, inventing
Evaluating
Justifying a decision or course of action
Checking, hypothesizing, critiquing, experimenting, judging
Analyzing
Breaking information into parts to explore understandings and relationships
Comparing, organizing, deconstructing, interrogating, finding
Applying
Using information in another familiar situation
Implementing, carrying out, using, executing
Understanding
Explaining ideas or concepts
Interpreting, summarizing, paraphrasing, classifying, explaining
Remembering
Recalling information
Recognizing, listing, describing, retrieving, naming, finding
The Power of Questions
 Take a moment to reflect on the following questions:
• Who asks the questions in classrooms?
• Who answers the questions in classrooms?
• What types of questions are asked most frequently?
• How are higher order questioning skills modeled?
• How can we avoid a “tennis match” of questioning?
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What We’re Aiming For
http://www.amnh.org/nationalcenter/youngnaturalistawards/2011/aidan.html
Which world view is “right?”
E=
2
MC