Clearly articulating STEM schools

This week I attended the National Charter School Conference in Atlanta, GA. While there, I attending a session titled, "Designing STEM Schools to Build America's Future". The panel of Bill Kurtz (Denver School of Science and Technology Public Schools) and Jan Morrison (Teaching Institute for Excellence in STEM) was moderated by Deborah McGriff (New Schools Fund).

Overall, it really sounds like Bill and DSST are doing some great things. Jan did a great job of articulating the need to correctly identify the good from the bad ( i.e.- fake PBL and lazy curriculum integration).

All that being said, I was disappointed in how the DSST model was presented. The elevator pitch of the school was indistinguishable from most any other traditional school vita. They highlighted core curriculum of all the usual subjects, a commitment to excellence and community connections with mentors. In my mind, reiterating these is the equivalent of someone saying they are coming out with a revolutionary new car and when asked what makes it different they respond, "it travels on roads". Why highlight these as your first points of when trying to show what makes you different? Additionally, Jan's point about intentional design and clear language were contradictory to the latter half of her presentation as she later uses old paradigms to describe key pieces of good STEM. I guess perhaps this is a symptom of her heavy higher ed academic background and her macro role.

During the presentation and questions, I realized, despite the blazay elevator pitch, DSST and Bill are doing great things significantly different from the traditional vita they started with. For instance:

- Intentional integration of subjects (especially in 11,12)
- Modified block for 11,12 with co-teaching for even larger time blocks
- Rigorous capstone project
- Expectation that an 11 minute lecture is too long (10 or less)
- Seniors/freshman mentorship/TAs

The problem I have with schools that use the traditional messaging and de-emphasize the differences of the practical details, such as different scheduling, non-coursework for credit, different role of teachers, it that it gives those who have the same first three powerpoint slides of their school vita a false pulse on their improvement/innovation and impacts their subsequent decision-making.

From my experience traveling, meeting and working with schools from across the country, higher up folks don't take the time to understand the nuance and end up approaching things with a same as usual response only adding new labels.

To this point, both Jan and Bill pointed out that PBL has too many meanings. In an many ways, the good implementations of PBL are shadowed out by the watered down versions in the mainstream causing a mixed message of the method's possibility. Totally agree, but don't agree with Jan that 'Design Focused' is any more clear or intuitive for PBL as a label. I also found it amusing and self-serving that she trademarked this everywhere in her presentation. Red flag alert.

Jan and Bill also emphasized how integrated curriculum is not simply doing a math class with a bolt-on worksheet and needs to be more holistic and [my word for what they said] constructivist.

By the end of the session, I gained some good perspective on this STEM example. Bill and his staff are doing great things. Likewise, I felt validated that some of the good things they were doing different are inline with what we see and think is better education. It's interesting to see how research/management organizations are characterizing STEM schools and will be even more interesting to see how real the differences of STEM schools are articulated moving forward. I hope the nuance of what they are doing does not get lost in the attempt to sound good in attracting others from old, inadequate paradigms.