Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Department of Education has issued guidance on how districts can best leverage federal funds for STEM learning, including examples related to how ESSA's Title I, Title II, Title III and Title IV and the Perkins Act can support PreK-12 STEM education.
- The blueprint was released with the goal of increasing educational equity for those students traditionally underserved by STEM subjects, and helping bring more STEM education to pre-K students.
- The April letter announced a five-year strategic STEM Education plan, created by the Committee on STEM Education of the National Science and Technology Council.
Dive Insight:
Unique strategies and new learning tools like those currently in use in some Tennessee schools are taking off to help engage learners in STEM subjects. There, a new online tool called Learning Blade is helping learners find a passion for STEM. A reported 37% of students reported being more likely to consider a STEM career after engaging with the program. Experts also recommend STEM learning begin as soon as possible, in pre-K or kindergarten.
Other new models of engaging students in STEM include an experimental approach that rotates different teachers in and out of the classroom. That model, now piloted in Huntingdon Area Middle School, features one technology teacher, one library media specialist, one math teacher and one science teacher who collaborate on a STEM course for students; each educator rotates every three days.