Recent posts for Nephrotex Game
Why do students drop out of STEM majors: deteriorated interest, low grades, loss of passion.
The president’s call for more engineers and STEM educators is focused on the wrong level of education according to a New York Times article .
Where enthusiasm for STEM subjects is ignited at a young age, it appears to fizzle out as students reach higher levels of education. The article cites a study from the University of California Los Angeles.
What is driving students out of STEM degrees? One engineering professor described the situation as “the math-science death march.”–caused by rigorous coursework, difficult grading scales, loss of passion, easier classes in other majors and most importantly too many classes based on theory and memorization and not enough practical application.
Educators fear that the study of engineering has not evolved to meet the needs of students in the age of technology, action, and hands on learning.
‘Other deterrents are the tough freshman classes, typically followed by two years of fairly abstract courses leading to a senior research or design project. “It’s dry and hard to get through, so if you can create an oasis in there, it would be a good thing,” says Dr. Goldberg, who retired last year as an engineering professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.’
Many students and professors take issue with the static style of STEM education calling for more interaction and innovation in the classroom.
The take home point is nationally students are losing interests because they are not building confidence in their knowledge, skills, values, and identities as an engineer–the same factors needed to create an epistemic frame. As educators look for engaging ways to teach the process of engineering thinking and design, opportunity and need for epistemic games like Nephrotex is greater than ever.
Epistemic learning through mentored games like Nephrotex may provide the solution to the so called “math-science death march.”
Physics and Poetry
Professions that depend on STEM skills are the second-fastest professional group in the United States according to New York Times blogger Motoko Rich, who references a Georgetown University study. Occupational fields like manufacturing, utilities, transportation and mining, and even sales and management are demanding that workers have a STEM background. In an increasingly technical global marketplace, it’s become a necessity to be able to communicate with engineers and computer scientists in collaborative projects or to sell a product.
So even if young people don’t plan on majoring only in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics, it’s beneficial for them to have some understanding of the STEM world and ways of thinking. Students can complete a double major in STEM and another field, participate in STEM extra-curricular activities and competitions, or play epistemic games like Nephrotex and Land Science that simulate professional workplaces.
Rich sums it up best, “physics and poetry, anyone?”
Students Feel High School Insufficiently Prepared Them for STEM Majors
Today, Microsoft released a survey indicating that only 20% of students in STEM fields felt that their high school courses sufficiently prepared them for college-level work, despite the fact that 55% of them decided to pursue STEM fields when they were still in high school. The majority of students and parents of K-12 students agreed that the U.S. does a “poor job” of teaching STEM courses compared to other countries.
We continue to stress that expecting students to simply memorize and recite formulas and concepts is poor teaching. Students need to be taught the ways in which professionals in STEM fields use those formulas and concepts as problem solving tools. Students who play epistemic games are better prepared for the work that lies ahead. In epistemic games such as Nephrotex and Land Science, mentors who play the role of professionals encourage students to reflect on their actions in the game and make connections between values, skills, and knowledge in their STEM domain.
Use of Professional Practice Simulation in a First-Year Introduction Engineering Course
Chesler, N., D’Angelo, C., Arastoopour, G., and Shaffer, D.W. (2011). Use of Professional Practice Simulation in a First-Year Introduction Engineering Course. Paper presented at the American Society for Engineering Education Conference (ASEE), Vancouver, BC.
http://epistemicgames.org/eg/wp-content/uploads/Chesler_ASEE_2011.pdf
Girls Sweep Global Google Science Fair
Google holds an annual competition to give talented high school students around the world a chance to showcase their ideas about science. NPR reports that Google has just announced their 2011 science fair winners.
The three winners, beating out over 10,000 students in the competition, were all young women. Girls can do science and engineering at the highest level, but we know that somewhere along the way they get turned off (see Goodman’s Final Report of the Women’s Experiences in College Engineering).That’s one of the reasons we are excited about Nephrotex, an epistemic game that offers something different from the typical engineering education curriculum.
We are already seeing results that women who participate in Nephrotex understand what engineering is and have motivation to persist after completing the virtual internship.
