In my October blog I-STEM, I suggested we should expand the concept of STEM to I-STEM, to include Imagination/Innovation.
Follow-on thinking has evolved this to the CTE-I-STEM Cookie concept as discussed below.
For this blog Acronym “CTE” refers to Career Technical Education ; Acronym “I” refers to Imagination/Innovation and Acronym “STEM” refers to Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. The North Carolina Standard Course of Study Guide provides detailed information about CTE course offerings in North Carolina.
The May 2009 Education Week’s SPOTLIGHT on STEM in Schools article starting on page 14 entitled “STEM as a Curriculum - An Experiential Approach” , By Jan Morrison & Raymond V. “Buzz” Bartlett have some interesting points which support some of the concepts discussed in this blog.
One of the points is:
” Effective teaching and learning in both STEM and Career and Technology Education are, practically speaking, the flip sides of the same coin.”
The concept of flip sides of the same coin trigged my thinking to what is addressed in this blog as two faces of a cookie or sandwich.
If we look at STEM as one face of a cookie or sandwich and CTE as the other face, then the good stuff in the middle is Imagination and Innovation; therefore it seems logical to think of all three in terms of a CTE-I-STEM cookie, or sandwich.
You don’t get a good cookie or sandwich without the two faces containing good stuff in the middle. Dagwood and his sandwiches are a prime example of imagination and innovation working on the ingredients of a sandwich.
The Education Week’s SPOTLIGHT on STEM article goes on to say,
“We must first recognize STEM as a unitary idea, not simply a grouping of the four disciplines in a convenient, pronounceable acronym.”
“The University of Maryland engineering professor Leigh R. Abts has used the term “metadiscipline” to describe STEM, meaning a realm of knowledge that speaks to the presentation of technical subjects as they exist in the natural world, part and parcel of each other. “
It goes on to say “This approach breaks down the boundaries of disciplines devised by and for academia, our historical taxonomy of learning reinforced by Charles W. Eliot and the National Education Association’s Committee of Ten in the late 1800s. Organizing knowledge into disciplines may be useful for research, for delving deeply into the secrets of any natural phenomenon, or for dividing up knowledge into teachable chunks. But it does not reflect the reality or convey the excitement of the world we live in. Neither does it help lead students toward inquiry’s counterpoint: solving problems by applying knowledge to design solutions. This is what students will be called on to do in the workplace and in life.”
In my humble opinion, the ideas of “Unitary” and “metadiscipline” can be applied to the concept of including CTE-I-STEM.
Recently while celebrating my youngest grandson’s birthday at the NASCAR Theme park at Concord Mills, I shared with him and his friend the concept of the Cookie Challenge. This would consist of a group with teams of 5-6 individuals working together based on M21C Innovative Engine Team. The cookie challenge teams would decide what their challenge would be and compete based on using M21C concepts in their approaches to the challenges.
Using a napkin to define STEM and CTE; and explain the M21C Innovative Engine Team; I then used Book light and Repen examples to demonstrate the various functions of Customer/Marketplace, Technologist /Production-Service, Engineer/Development, Scientist/Research and Business/Entrepreneur team. My blog on Entrepreneur Hats describes this and includes the Logistics Hat.
When asked to use their imagination for another ride at the theme park they started drawing an airplane on a napkin.
The highlight of this session was when my grandson took the napkin and folded it and put it in his pocket, maybe it will be a seed that will sprout.
For several years, I have been plagued with the idea of PIE (Pre-college Innovative Engines) in our Schools. Maybe the approach of a Cookie Challenge would be a viable way to plant the seeds of PIE in our Schools.
If these 9 year old boys can grasp the concept of a Cookie Challenge then it would seem others could also.
Yesterday, our local High School held “The Reality Store” for 10th graders. The format of stations (Bank, Taxes, Housing, Transportation, Utilities, etc) could be structured around the Innovative Engine Team with the objective of an Innovative product or service resulting from the exercise. Anyway it seems worth additional thought.
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RESOURCE INFORMATION BELOW
The May 2009 Education Week’s SPOTLIGHT on STEM in Schools article starting on page 14 entitled “STEM as a Curriculum - An Experiential Approach” , By Jan Morrison & Raymond V. “Buzz” Bartlett have some interesting points which support some of the concepts discussed in this blog.
Editor’s Note: “STEM”—short for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math—is considered crucial subject matter for today’s students and critical to their future success in the global economy. This “Spotlight” takes a closer look at innovative approaches to STEM teaching and learning in American schools.
” Effective teaching and learning in both STEM and career and technology education are, practically speaking, the flip sides of the same coin.”
“We must first recognize STEM as a unitary idea, not simply a grouping of the four disciplines in a convenient, pronounceable acronym.”
“The University of Maryland engineering professor Leigh R. Abts has used the term “metadiscipline” to describe STEM, meaning a realm of knowledge that speaks to the presentation of technical subjects as they exist in the natural world, part and parcel of each other. “
“This approach breaks down the boundaries of disciplines devised by and for academia, our historical taxonomy of learning reinforced by Charles W. Eliot and the National Education Association’s Committee of Ten in the late 1800s. Organizing knowledge into disciplines may be useful for research, for delving deeply into the secrets of any natural phenomenon, or for dividing up knowledge into teachable chunks. But it does not reflect the reality or convey the excitement of the world we live in. Neither does it help lead students toward inquiry’s counterpoint: solving problems by applying knowledge to design solutions. This is what students will be called on to do in the workplace and in life.”
IEEE The Institute issue December 7, 2009 feature article
A Recipe for Innovation
BY KATHY KOWALENKO
IEEE Life Fellow Gerard H. “Gus” Gaynor, Fellow Gordon W.
Day, and Senior Member Mauro Togneri recently shared their views on innovation
with The Institute.
Gaynor is president of the IEEE Technology Management Council, which focuses on good practices for members involved with overseeing the management of engineering, technology, innovation, and strategy.
“Countries have two reasons for becoming more innovative. One is national, the other global,” Togneri says.
“Nationally, a country wants to raise its citizens’ standard of living, create well-paying jobs, and develop products to offer to the world market. From a global view, innovation in one country helps all countries, because it reduces poverty, creates more efficient ways of doing things, and opens up world markets for technology products.”
Gaynor finds innovation essential to leading countries out of a recession but points out that “it can’t be done at the national level. “It’s got to be done down at the individual level,” he says. “Innovation starts at the bottom, not at the top.”
“But,” he says, “they will use many of the same tools to stimulate innovation: building a solid infrastructure, creating good communication systems, putting into place financial structures that encourage entrepreneurship and innovation, and funding education to create a high-tech workforce.”
“The most important raw material for innovation is brainpower, and assuring there is an abundance of that is perhaps the most important thing IEEE can do,” Day says. “Engineers create jobs because they come up with ideas, invent new products, and build up the companies they work for as well as start new ones. That’s how an economy grows.”
CAREFUL NURTURING
Innovation needs to be cultivated, the experts say.
“Innovation requires an environment that fosters it, people who are willing to take risks, and companies that can be patient and tolerate failure,” Togneri says. “When you are creating or inventing something, you need to take chances, because you don’t know whether it will work.
“To be innovative, a company needs a longer horizon, where it isn’t just worrying about tomorrow’s financial results but looking at its long-term future,” he continues. The purpose of innovation is to provide something of economic value, Gaynor adds. It begins with an idea that is developed into a workable concept, and then, hopefully, into a product. “Innovation equals invention plus commercialization or implementation,” he says. “The process is not simple. Until someone takes research results and commercializes them, it’s not really innovation.
“In today’s world, people are expecting innovations to be churned out every 12 months, and that’s not going to happen.”
He points out that innovation also includes activities that refine or simplify an organization’s processes, such as doing something more efficiently or reducing waste.
You can learn more about innovation from Gaynor’s four e-books: Doing Innovation: Creating Economic Value; Developing a Workable Innovation Process; Fostering an Innovation Culture; and What It Takes to Be an
Innovator. The e-books are available to IEEE members for US $9.95 each and can be found under the IEEEUSA
e-books section of the IEEE Career site.
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