"This book addresses the challenges that face science and mathematics education if it is to be relevant to 21st century citizens, as well as the ways that outstanding specialists from several countries around the world think it should deal with those challenges. Starting with the issue of science and mathematics teacher education in a changing world, it moves on to deal with innovative approaches to teaching science and mathematics. It then discusses contemporary issues related to the role played by technology in science and mathematics education, the challenges of the STEM agenda, and ways of making science and mathematics education more inclusive. Finally, it focuses on assessment issues, as the success of science and mathematics education depends at least in part on the purposes for which, and ways in which, students' learning is assessed. There is a worldwide trend towards providing meaningful science and mathematics education to all children for the sake of literacy and numeracy development and a need to produce enough science and technology specialists. This trend and need, coupled with the concern raised by students' disengagement in these two knowledge areas and the role that technology may play in countering it, put increasingly high demands on teachers. As shown in this book, science and mathematics education may offer a unique contribution in developing responsible citizens by fostering skills required in order to assume wider responsibilities and roles, focusing on personal, social and environmental dimensions. For instance, it offers unique insights into how teachers can build on students' complicated and interconnected real-worlds to help them learn authentic and relevant science and mathematics. Additionally, the book highlights potential positive relationships between science and mathematics, which are often envisaged as having a conflicting relationship in school curricula. By uncovering the similarities between them, and by providing evidence that both areas deal with issues that are relevant for citizens' daily lives, the book explores ways of linking and giving coherence to science and mathematics knowledge as components of everyday life settings. It also provides directions for future research on the educational potential of interconnecting science and mathematics at the different educational levels. Therefore, this is a worthwhile book for researchers, teacher educators and schoolteachers. It covers theoretical perspectives, research-based approaches and practical applications that may make a difference in education that is relevant and inclusive for citizens in the 21st century"--

The U.S. system of graduate education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) has served the nation and its science and engineering enterprise extremely well. Over the course of their education, graduate students become involved in advancing the frontiers of discovery, as well as in making significant contributions to the growth of the U.S. economy, its national security, and the health and well-being of its people. However, continuous, dramatic innovations in research methods and technologies, changes in the nature and availability of work, shifts in demographics, and expansions in the scope of occupations needing STEM expertise raise questions about how well the current STEM graduate education system is meeting the full array of 21st century needs. Indeed, recent surveys of employers and graduates and studies of graduate education suggest that many graduate programs do not adequately prepare students to translate their knowledge into impact in multiple careers. Graduate STEM Education for the 21st Century examines the current state of U.S. graduate STEM education. This report explores how the system might best respond to ongoing developments in the conduct of research on evidence-based teaching practices and in the needs and interests of its students and the broader society it seeks to serve. This will be an essential resource for the primary stakeholders in the U.S. STEM enterprise, including federal and state policymakers, public and private funders, institutions of higher education, their administrators and faculty, leaders in business and industry, and the students the system is intended to educate.

Theorising STEM Education in the 21st Century is a book that captures the essence of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics and the intricacies of STEM education in the contemporary society. It explores STEM as an interdisciplinary field as well as the individual disciplines that make up STEM. This ensures the field of STEM as a whole is theorised. The book provides critical insight on STEM education from Cairo to Cape Town or from America to Indonesia. With a team of authors from universities across the world, the book is a vital contribution to critical scholarship on STEM education in contemporary times.

Today's undergraduate studentsâ€"future leaders, policymakers, teachers, and citizens, as well as scientists and engineersâ€"will need to make important decisions based on their understanding of scientific and technological concepts. However, many undergraduates in the United States do not study science, mathematics, engineering, or technology (SME&T) for more than one year, if at all. Additionally, many of the SME&T courses that students take are focused on one discipline and often do not give students an understanding about how disciplines are interconnected or relevant to students' lives and society. To address these issues, the National Research Council convened a series of symposia and forums of representatives from SME&T educational and industrial communities. Those discussions contributed to this book, which provides six vision statements and recommendations for how to improve SME&T education for all undergraduates. The book addresses pre-college preparation for students in SME&T and the joint roles and responsibilities of faculty and administrators in arts and sciences and in schools of education to better educate teachers of K-12 mathematics, science, and technology. It suggests how colleges can improve and evaluate lower-division undergraduate courses for all students, strengthen institutional infrastructures to encourage quality teaching, and better prepare graduate students who will become future SME&T faculty.

Numerous teaching, learning, assessment, and institutional innovations in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education have emerged in the past decade. Because virtually all of these innovations have been developed independently of one another, their goals and purposes vary widely. Some focus on making science accessible and meaningful to the vast majority of students who will not pursue STEM majors or careers; others aim to increase the diversity of students who enroll and succeed in STEM courses and programs; still other efforts focus on reforming the overall curriculum in specific disciplines. In addition to this variation in focus, these innovations have been implemented at scales that range from individual classrooms to entire departments or institutions. By 2008, partly because of this wide variability, it was apparent that little was known about the feasibility of replicating individual innovations or about their potential for broader impact beyond the specific contexts in which they were created. The research base on innovations in undergraduate STEM education was expanding rapidly, but the process of synthesizing that knowledge base had not yet begun. If future investments were to be informed by the past, then the field clearly needed a retrospective look at the ways in which earlier innovations had influenced undergraduate STEM education. To address this need, the National Research Council (NRC) convened two public workshops to examine the impact and effectiveness of selected STEM undergraduate education innovations. This volume summarizes the workshops, which addressed such topics as the link between learning goals and evidence; promising practices at the individual faculty and institutional levels; classroom-based promising practices; and professional development for graduate students, new faculty, and veteran faculty. The workshops concluded with a broader examination of the barriers and opportunities associated with systemic change.

Leading experts in the fields of science, mathematics and education present a plan for improving mathematics, science and technology education for all American elementary and secondary students so that their achievement is the best in the world by 1995. The Commission believes that while individual American schools and students excel in science and mathematics, the average American student is said to need a much firmer grounding at the elementary and secondary school levels. It notes that the most serious problem is a severe shortage of qualified teachers. Makes a number of recommendations and calls for stronger leadership on this issue through such means as a National Education Council reporting to the President.