Posts
Reading Skills Are the Biggest Predictor of Career Aspirations
The OECD’s Latest PISA Study Finds that Around the World, Reading Skills Are the Biggest Predictor of Smart Career Aspirations
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study tested 600,000 15-year-old students in 79 countries on reading, science and mathematics.
What did the OECD study find? One troubling finding was that during the last 10 years, students’ reading skills have not improved significantly in poorer countries, but only in countries that are increasing their spending on education. Those stronger countries include Canada, China, Estonia, Ireland, Finland and Singapore. Read more
What Are the Best STEM Jobs for Your Students to Consider?
This list from U.S. News provides some insights
What STEM jobs offer the highest pay and the best chances of long-term employment?
“Explore Top Stem Careers,” an article that Susannah Snider and Rebecca Koenig published in U.S. News and World Report on April 22, 2019, offers some suggestions and provides food for thought. In compiling their list of careers, the authors accessed U.S. News’s own best jobs rankings and added data about projected job growth from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Read more
Why Do 60%+ of College Students Drop Out of STEM Programs?
In a post she wrote for the Greatschools.org blog on March 10, 2014 (“Does our approach to teaching math fail even the smartest kids?”) Carol Lloyd notes that according to a study conducted by UCLA, as many as 60% of all college students who start a STEM major in college drop out. Read more
Who Needs a Female STEM Role Model?
Microsoft Study: High School-Age Girls Benefit from Female STEM Role Models
We have all seen those illustrated books that are meant to inspire girls when they are in elementary and middle school – those biographies of scientists like Marie Curie and Sally Ride. By the time girls get to high school, they aren’t reading books like those any longer. But does that mean that by the time girls reach high school, they no longer need role models to motivate them to enter STEM careers Read more
Partner Profile: National Center for Women & Information Technology
The Student Research Foundation is proud to be a partner organization of the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT), an organization dedicated to increasing opportunities for women in information technology. Read more
Nine Policies to Increase Computer Science Learning at the State Level
The 2019 State of Computer Science Education, a nationwide study conducted by the Advocacy Coalition, the Computer Science Teachers Association and the Expanding Computing Education Pathways Alliance, found that two conflicting trends are at work in computer science as it is taught in American high schools. Read more
How to Get Burned-Out Students Excited about STEM Studies
“Students who are bored or inattentive or who put little effort to schoolwork are unlikely to benefit from better standards, curriculum, and instruction unless schools, teachers, and parents take steps to address their lack of motivation . . .”
Color Calculators Help All Students Better Visualize Math Concepts
Graphing calculators help most all high school students visualize math concepts and the results of their work. But if those students have learning disabilities, graphing calculators with vibrant color displays are even more effective at making math come to life. Read more
Robot Teaches Students Real-World Programming Skills
Ms. Gresham’s Classroom Robot Teaches Her Students Real-World Programming Skills
Students in Ms. Gresham’s George Ranch High School classroom in Richmond, Texas were eagerly learning computer programming skills. But Ms. Gresham, who is eager to provide her students with the best STEM learning experiences possible, wanted something more – an expandable robot, able to move and equipped with sensors, that her students could program to interact with its environment. So she chose to apply on DonorsChoose.org for funding to buy a smart robot car for her classroom. Read more