STEM Strategic Plan released
11/09/2018
ISTA President Teresa Meredith served on the Indiana Department of Education's STEM Council. For more than a year, the council has worked to develop a STEM Strategic Plan for the state. The plan was released today at a Statehouse news conference. Here are Meredith's thoughts on the results and her hopes for teaching and learning.
Educators of my generation were trained in inquiry-based instruction in all subjects. The results were inquisitive students willing to explore and discover through guided, self-exploration.
The STEM Strategic Plan unveiled today will return to an inquiry-based approach to learning – at least in the STEM fields – which I hope will once again become the norm in Hoosier classrooms.
The instructional landscape changed when teaching to the test became the model in classrooms across the state. Classroom instruction became drills and memorization rather than developing the skills employers desire in future employees.
It’s no surprise that representatives from Hoosier companies who served on the STEM Council want a workforce who can solve day-to-day, real-world problems. I’m glad to see that legislators and state agencies are acknowledging what educators have said for years – testing isn’t learning.
Indiana’s set to spend more than $26 million for two years of state-mandated tests. Can we find better uses for those dollars? A good first step would be to address the teacher shortage, which significantly impacts STEM subjects, by compensating educators as professionals.
Implementing the plan will require more, highly-skilled educators trained in pedagogy, child development, as well as inquiry-based instruction. Let’s attract and retain those that want to inspire, not drill. The real learning happens when discovery, innovation and creativity can blossom.
