joi, 5 octombrie 2017

Module 1: STEM careers in schools and in the job market

"The aim [of education] must be the training of independently acting and thinking individuals who, however, see in the service to the community their highest life problem."
Albert Einstein
Module objectives
The learning objectives of Module 1 are:
  • To learn what we mean by STEM and why STEM studies are important; 
  • To understand what the STEM skill gap is while having a critical approach to it; 
  • To assimilate the main benefits of career counselling in schools and to understand different cognitive-behaviour dimensions as pillars of career development;
  • To get an introduction to school strategies to foster STEM career awareness, taking into account different possible types of school career counselling scenarios.

1.1 Introduction

 Indeed, knowledge and skills in science, technology, engineering and maths disciplines are becoming essential to function in today's society and we have to aspire to deliver the best education possible in order to engage a whole new generation of scientists, researchers, engineers and technicians who will carry the economy on their shoulders.
If you are taking this course, it means that you want to help educate and build up this new generation of professionals. 

1.2 The world of STEM careers

  • Students embarking on STEM careers
It is crucial to be at the forefront of the efforts to attract more pupils to scientific and technological careers so they can later embark on related professions. Indeed, in order to produce outstanding performers in the field, we need high-quality and multi-disciplinary education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Ideally, that should drive the current innovative economy forward and sustain a knowledge-driven society, supported by skilled, responsible and inspired young people.
While the number of graduates with science and technology qualifications keeps falling, recent reports estimate a need for a high number of scientists and researchers within Europe. Watch the video below to further explore and understand the difficulties European economies are facing in trying to recruit the next generation of scientists.
You have also now seen what STEM education means, what issues we are facing in terms of demand and supply of STEM professionals, the concept of “brain drain” and why people refer to the “STEM skill gap” as often as they do. We are going to develop this last concept a bit more:
 The STEM skill gap
As already explained, a multitude of sources have provided evidence that European industries face difficulties in finding skilled workers, causing what is known as the STEM skill gap. However, there are disagreements on the causes of such recruitment difficulties.
- Some argue that employers’ problems in filling vacancies are related to the fact that young graduates are not prepared for the skills currently on demand.
- Others believe the skill gap in the labour market is caused by structural economic shifts. These shifts have rendered the skills of individuals insufficient or irrelevant for the demands of the current markets.
What's more, others question whether this skill gap exists at all, arguing that there are other reasons for being unable to find suitable workers. In order to become better acquainted with this debate and to fully understand the disparity of perspectives, we present you with the following two articles offering different perspectives on the topic:

Activity 1: Use the padlet below to answer the following questions:
  1. Do you think there is a shortage of STEM skills in Europe?
  2. If so, what is the main reason for that?
  3. If not, why are employers finding it difficult to employ workers?

1.3 STEM career awareness in schools
  • Career guidance scenarios in schools
Before we can talk about STEM career guidance in schools, we need to take into account the variety of existing situations where career-counselling activities take place. Approaches vary considerably from country to country and even from city to city or school to school. Some schools are lucky enough to benefit from the support of a career counsellor or from a career centre, whereas others often rely on the time of teachers to take up the role of the career counsellor, either explicitly or not.
In this section, we provide an overview of different possible “career guidance scenarios”. This information will be developed in further modules.
  • - Teachers integrating career-counseling activities in the classroom: In this case, the school has not developed any career counselling strategy or professional role. The only approach to counselling - if any - is that of integrating a limited number of career related activities in classroom activities, delivered by school staff.
  • - Teachers acting as career counselors: In many cases, schools identify a particular teacher to lead career-counselling activities.
    • Some schools might appoint a teacher to take on the role of a “head of careers”. This approach identifies careers as a specific area to take into account and gives the appointed teacher an additional role that might bring him/her more prestige. This approach has the risk that teachers selected as “head of careers” are given minimal time to discharge their role and/or receive very little training for it.
    • This approach can also be deployed to develop the role of the “career coordinator”, emphasizing management and coordination of career activities across the school rather than in the classroom. While in some cases career coordinators are teachers, this role can also be developed by a career guidance professional, which brings us to the next scenario.
  • - Schools collaborating with a professional career counselor: Developed under a school-based model, schools can appoint a specialist in career guidance to work with the school and to develop specific guidance activities for students.
  • - Schools collaborating with a career center: These normally entail a partnership between schools and an external specialist service where a number of internal school stakeholders (including heads of school and the career teacher/coordinator) work closely with the career centre. This can be an approach developed by a national or regional government, where the partnership with a career centre is mandatory, or it can be developed as a school’s own initiative. Within this category, we could also find partnerships between schools and potential employers and post-secondary learning providers.
 The pillars of STEM career counselling
What holds for all of these situations, though, regardless of geographical location and support system, is that any counselling activities implemented in an educational centre will play an important role in the choice making of students. Watch the following video to get a glimpse of the main benefits of career counselling in schools:
  • Particularities of STEM career counselling
When we apply career counselling to the STEM subjects, some particularities arise. In the study entitled The Emerging Role of Science Teachers in Facilitating STEM Career Awareness  (Cohen & Patterson, 2012), based on a review of existing literature, the author outlines four cognitive-behaviour dimensions as the pillars of career development: awareness (students are aware and know the variety of STEM careers available), relevance (they see the connection between the subject they are studying and day to day life), engagement (students show direct interest in interacting with the subject matter), self-efficacy (students are comfortable with using scientific tools).
The report also goes on to outline four teaching strategies that foster STEM career awareness, derived from a series of interviews with science teachers:
  1. Incorporate both formal and informal approaches: constantly bring career awareness in your activities and do not keep it as a separate unit.
  2. Help students see scientists as real people: students may have difficulty imagining themselves as scientists because they cannot see that scientists have a normal life, just like them. They have hobbies, families and various interests.
  3. Connect the dots: it is not enough to just expose students to career information; the teacher also has to directly connect career information with whatever the student is learning at that moment. This can refer to making clear connections to the real-life use of subjects, or giving examples of how they connect to scientific jobs. The student will not always be capable of making these connections himself, and you will have to do it for him.
  4. Embed reflection: To make sure that information sticks with students, embed some reflection to drive a deeper understanding. Otherwise, a lot of the information can be lost over time if reflection is not used to “glue” it.
While this approach focuses mostly on teaching practices (and is aimed at teachers), it is equally relevant for Heads of School or career counsellors (as we will see in further modules, when we discuss the roles of different educational actors in career counselling).
Indeed, one of the vital roles of a head of school is to “is to be supportive of the guidance and counselling programme by providing the needed materials, facilities such as rooms and becoming an active participant in some stages of the programme” (Salina, 2009). Therefore, it is important to understand the particularities of any teaching strategy that would foster STEM career awareness. As for career counsellors, there is a chance that they will carry out similar career awareness activities to teachers, making this advice equally relevant for them.

Activity 2:
Read Section 3 “Challenges and solutions to infusing career information into the science classroom” from the report presented in this section and, in the padlet below, name which of those challenges are encountered most often by teachers in your school.

1.4 Bibliography












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