Education Challenges in the 21st Century – Part 1
Education September 10th, 2009Changing the Conversation - Cathleen Barton, U.S. Education Manager for Intel Corporation, was a keynote presenter at the HI-TEC 2009 event. Her presentation titled, “Education Challenges in the 21st Century”, has inspired a series of articles that will be featured in this series of our @matec newsletter’s “Focus on Education” section. We will also post the articles here to allow for your comments.
Ms. Barton called attention to the following educational challenges in the 21st Century:
- The United States has both a below average achievement and a large socioeconomic gap. (Part of the achievement gap is due to the shortage of qualified math/science teachers in high poverty, rural and minority areas.)
- Teacher shortages will exacerbate as the baby boomer generation retires and as states adopt additional math/science courses for high school graduation. (States are increasing the number of math and science classes needed to graduate from high school, and 1.7M “Baby Boomer” teachers are expected to retire in the next 10 years.)
- Not enough students pursue STEM education and careers. (Girls and minorities are under-represented.)
As highlighted in the publication Changing the Conversation: Messages for
Improving Public Understanding of Engineering, Ms. Barton assessed that some of the problems associated with the public’s understanding of engineering are:
- Lots of time and effort invested to promote engineering;
- Prestige of the profession;
- Views of engineers and scientists;
- Data shows adults and teens do not know what engineers do; and
- Women, African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans are vastly under-represented in the field.
She assured us that Education and STEM Education are priorities for the President and the Secretary of Education and, in order to change this conversation, Ms. Barton suggested we:
- Recast communications from personal benefits, to how engineers make a difference in the world;
- Start talking in terms of ideas and impact; and
- Position engineering experience as one of discovery, design, imagination, innovation and contribution.
We invite you to share your thoughts regarding these issues.
Lara Smith
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:30 pm
[...] This installment of “Education Challenges in the 21st Century” as presented at the HI-TEC 2009 event by Cathleen Barton, U.S. Education Manager for Intel Corporation, focuses on “Americans’ Views on Engineering”. (Click here to read Part 1.) We will look at key findings from a nationwide survey among 808 adults conducted January 22 – 25, 2009 by Hart Research Associates titled Americans’ Attitudes Toward Engineering and Engineering Challenges. The poll found that Americans largely take for granted U.S. supremacy in science and technology, having little understanding or appreciation of the role that engineers play. The 6 key findings of the study are: [...]