The STEM Education Waterfront, Covered in Our 10 Most Popular Blog Posts
Nice to (re-)meet you
Nobody would call this new school year a return to normal. But it does mark a return to more widespread in-school learning than last year, at least insofar as local COVID infection rates will allow. As a result, students and teachers and administrators are all getting reacquainted with each other after an 18-month disruption to familiar school routines.
To kick off our own return to regular publication of the blog, we thought we would align ourselves with this theme of getting reacquainted. So herewith is a review of the blog posts of the last 18 months that garnered the most time and attention among you, our dear readers. For anyone who missed them the first time around or would just welcome a reminder, this review can serve to reacquaint us all with items that have earned particular interest. Plus, as we get started with another cycle of publication, it can inspire ideas for posts this year that might make it onto future examples of this list.
What made the grade
The top 10 blog posts of this period cut across various topics: engineering design, holiday toys, diversity, and tips for teaching and learning. It seems clear that the greatest services we are providing involve selecting and highlighting useful resources found around the internet as well as distilling interesting examples and inventive approaches to STEM education into usable, accessible guidance. In other words, curation and summation, with a bit of adaptation and rumination, to boot. So, with apologies for the word-play, here’s the list, which should, if past performance is any indication, contain at least something to interest almost everyone.
8 Great Videos to Teach the Engineering Design Process
Videos about the engineering design process can make an abstract, seemingly vague topic into something interesting and fun for students to learn about and apply. These eight videos run the gamut of approach and emphasis, but all deliver a useful, engaging treatment of the issue. There’s something here for all ages, from elementary to high school. Far and away the page that draws the most traffic
11 Toys to Excite the Engineer in Any Kid
Our first toy list, published in 2014, also proved to be one of our most-viewed blog posts ever. It was one of the earliest examples of engineering-flavored takes on holiday gift ideas, and as such, it earned enough traffic to become the first result shown on Google searches for “engineering toys,” a position it held for several years. Long since eclipsed by producers of engineering toy lists more clever in SEO and with larger marketing budgets, it remains a sentimental favorite for us and popular among readers.
Cybersecurity Summer Camps Are Heating Up
Summer camps in cybersecurity have proliferated all across the country in short order. Camps offer varied learning opportunities for students of all kinds, whether going to college or straight into the workforce. And many camps take aim at a startling gender gap in the field, offering girls-only environments for a different kind of learning experience.
Is This the Best Way to Increase Diversity in STEM?
Moving the needle on STEM diversity is hard work. Change has come, but only slowly. This examination of “culturally relevant education” wondered if such approaches could help speed up the increase in minorities and women finding their way into STEM fields.
8 Great Engineering Outreach Activities at Engineering Societies
In the early 2000’s, the National Academy of Engineering famously reported that engineering societies were spending – to no obvious benefit – $400 million a year on outreach programs to K-12 audiences. Many people disagreed with the method and conclusions, and outreach programs have done nothing but increase in number and ambition since then. We looked at the state of the art in 2014 and found several programs that were well conceived and executed, offering high-quality materials both in print and digital forms.
Teaching STEM with No Textbooks: Why NGSS Makes It So Tempting
Despite widespread adoption of learning standards aligned with Next Generation Science Standards, publishers have been slow to develop textbooks and curriculum resources that make the most out of the pedagogies and content that the new standards envision. As a result, skipping textbooks altogether has become a popular option for educators, for whom many alternative pathways to NGSS teaching and learning resources exist. Here’s how many of them get started.
The Secret to Success in Elementary STEM Education
Elementary teachers are great all-around educators. Integrating STEM into their training and support plays to their strengths. Here are some successful approaches for doing so, at all stages of their learning and development.
9 Engineering TED Talks to Watch Right Now
Engineering inhabits a non-trivial corner of TED-world, fitting in that “Technology, Education, and Design” form the thematic axis of the whole TED talk project. These talks highlight the diversity and ingeniousness of the engineering-related presentations to be sampled. They’re awesome, in all kinds of different ways, and will repay watching one, two, or even all nine of them.
How to See Cybersecurity as a STEM Field
In the areas of career preparation, ethics, and multi-disciplinary learning, cybersecurity education can extend the capacities of STEM education to serve the interests of both student and country. That’s not to say it’ll be easy to do. But with 100,000’s of jobs going begging in the field and online security a gaping hole in our collective, computer-using skill set, learning about the field should be a national priority for all students.
Left Out by Design, or How the STEM Gender Gap Leads to Lousy Products
Too few women participating on design teams leads to too many products that work for only half the population. From seat belts to medicine to protective clothing, goods meant for general use have long been designed with just men in mind. Closing the STEM gender gap can help remedy this kind of design failure.
And, finally
We hope this look backwards at popular blog posts has brought something interesting to the surface for all. Getting reacquainted with these “greatest hits” does give us some insights into what themes and approaches to focus on developing into future posts. And if we missed one of your personal favorites, let us know! Maybe the next version of this list will be “hidden gems!”
Eric Iversen is VP for Learning and Communications at Start Engineering. He has written and spoken widely on STEM education and related careers. You can write to him about this topic, especially when he gets stuff wrong, at eiversen@start-engineering.com.
You can also follow along on Twitter @StartEnginNow.
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