STEM, STEAM, STREAM: ‘The World Doesn’t Work Without Technology Anymore, Nothing Does.’

STEM is cool, our experts agree. And it’s important. The challenge is translating that to students.

Part Two of our series explores the state of STEM, STEAM, and STREAM education in Dallas-Fort Worth and the actions we need to take.

Since STEM was coined, it’s been a movement built on fundamentally shifting the way we think about education. STEM—Science, Technology, Engineering, Math—and its variations, STEAM (with its “A” for Art) and STREAM (with its “R” for Reading and wRiting), have their differences and their advocates.

Whatever your stance on the acronyms—STEM, STEAM, and STREAM—education is essential to building a foundation for a robust, high-tech workforce. It’s an umbrella concept, with each entity working together. And, it can have a significant impact on the workforce, fueling the future of the talent pipeline.

Dallas Innovates brought local leaders together for a three-part conversation on the state of STEM, STEAM, and STREAM in Dallas-Fort Worth—and why it matters to business. In Part One, our eight innovators discussed the meaning of STEM beyond just science, technology, engineering, and math. What does a STEM-driven curriculum look like? It was a large conversation (you can read about it here). But all agreed, now is the time to reinvent the way students learn in Dallas-Fort Worth.

Part Two continues that narrative, with the experts on our roundtable making suggestions for how to advance STEM in the region.

Jennifer Sampson, president and CEO of United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, says we need to engage students to inspire them toward a STEM-related career. As she points out, students “can’t be what they can’t see.” But, fundamental changes have taken place. “The way we thought people learned has been revolutionized,” SMU’s Dr. Stephanie Knight says. “We need teaching to be creative and to match the ways in which people learn.”

Dr. Jason Treadway, director of the STEM Institute at DCCCD, thinks the real demand in the STEM community is the need to educate for middle-skills jobs. To this, Oswaldo Alvarenga, executive director of STEM at Dallas ISD, weighed in on how creating career institutes can help.

The president and CEO of Big Thought, Byron Sanders, pointed out that doing it all with a lens of equity has to be the first step. And everything has to have STEM behind it, according to Sorabh Saxena, president of Global Operations & Services at AT&T Business, in order to make STEM “cool” again. And it is cool, Hilary Jackson, Vice President of Technology at Capital One Financial Services, agrees.

Yet, the challenge is in translating that to students.

It’s more than just talking about machine learning or AI, says Jackson. It’s really about action: It’s about putting technology into “concepts that people can use and get excited about.”

A cultural transformation is essential, Saxena says. “The notion of postponing gratification so that you can build a strong foundation is critical.”

While each of our panelists had a different approach, they collectively agreed that action is needed, and together, we can do something about it.

“If we put our heads together, we could come up with some really neat solutions,” Dr. Koshi Dhingra, founder and director of talkSTEM, says. “It’s about not just one solution, but many solutions.”

Read on to get a closer look at some of these ideas that have the power to drive meaningful change in Dallas-Fort Worth, and beyond.

And stay tuned for our final installment next week for a glimpse at what a STEM-fueled community would look like.

 

View the full article by Dallas Innovates.