One School Leader Uses His Organizational Capacity to Explore Methods of Integrating STEM Education and 21st-Century Learning Skills

As an educator, Justin McCollum, former lead teacher of a successful independent study program in Central California which he now supervises, is dedicated to eradicating the stigma that surrounds alternative education programs, devoted to closing the achievement gap between traditionally high-achieving students and both their socioeconomically-disadvantaged and their minority peers, and committed to facilitating the development in all students of the skills necessary to succeed in the twenty first century. 


Thus, McCollum has targeted one of the major challenges faced by the English language learner (ELL) minority population:  the California High School Exit Examination (CAHSEE).  Failure to pass the CAHSEE, which is comprised of both an English and a mathematics component, is a primary reason for the low graduation rate of ELL students—failure to pass the test prevents nearly one out of every four ELL students from graduating high school, compared to about one out of every thirty non-ELL students. 


Consequently, the population of ELL non-high school graduates continues to grow throughout California.  Due to a lack of rudimentary skills in English and mathematics and because they are without a high school diploma, these individuals are blocked from many opportunities of educational and economic advancement and quickly become mired in poverty.  In addition to increasing pressure on already strained public and social services, society is furnished with individuals lacking self-esteem, which is clearly a mark of social failure.  McCollum presumed that providing intervention to struggling ELL students is a primary element of education on which he must focus if his aforementioned goals as an educator are to be realized.


Digital resources have proved to be effective tools in providing intervention to ELL students, especially in mathematics.  However, such resources are often expensive and unfeasible for financially-strained rural districts such as the district in which McCollum works.  McCollum became interested in the potential power of Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.org) after using the no-cost resource to help himself study for a teacher’s examination—the California Subject Examination Test in mathematics.  The clear, straightforward, and humorous methods in which Salman Khan delivered the material allowed McCollum to brush up on high-level calculus in a few hours, despite the fact that it had been nearly a decade since his last advanced math course.  And, it was free.  All one needs to utilize Khan Academy is the internet, a resource to which most of McCollum's students have ample access.  The proverbial light bulb went off in McCollum’s head, and he immediately began plotting to use Khan Academy to help his struggling ELL students.

Thus, McCollum designed an action research project to test the effectiveness of Khan Academy before implementing it into the wider curriculum of the independent study program.  He employed a pretest-posttest control group quasi-experimental research design to determine whether and to what degree a relationship exists between a student’s exposure to Khan Academy’s “CAHSEE Example Problems” learning module (treatment) and the same student’s CAHSEE in mathematics score after such exposure.  The results were highly impressive.

The research findings indicate a strong positive correlation between student exposure to Khan Academy and an increase in student performance on the mathematics portion of the CAHSEE.  In fact, the treatment group not only out-performed the other independent study students of the control group, but its passage rate was much higher than any other campus in the district (which includes one continuation high school and two comprehensive high schools). Thus, students (particularly ELL students) in need of mathematical intervention should utilize this software.    

McCollum’s major findings are presented in the detailed poster below.  Please note that the file is of a .jpeg format, which allows the user to download and adjust the viewing window.  An easier viewing method might be to right-click on the image (PCs), open the "image" or "link" in a new window, zoom in with the magnifying glass tool, and further zoom in through the controls found in the "View" drop down at the top of the screen.

*Kindly note that the experimental group is represented in blue and the control group is represented in red on the first four graphs, as the descriptive text next to each graph may be difficult to read.

McCollum’s research paper, entitled “The Efficacy of Khan Academy for English Language Learners,” will be posted soon.

Integrating STEM Education and 21st-Century Learning Skills

California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo's motto of "learn by doing" is a crucial element both of its remarkable reputation for offering a high quality, technology-intensive education and of its ability to produce graduates equipped with skills desirable for success in the twenty first century.  This teaching philosophy has gained many monikers in the jargon-laden field of education, such as "applied learning," "experiential learning," and "hands-on learning."  In addition, experiential learning often includes a collaborative element, which provides important exposure for students preparing to enter a career.

Research suggests that educational environments in which such teaching methods are employed better engage students and more adequately prepare them for the twenty-first century labor market.  For example, in the midst of the current economic recession, over 86% of Cal Poly's 2011 graduating class survey respondents noted that they had either been hired as a full-time employee or enrolled in graduate school (LINK TO SOURCE).

However, most educational institutions in the U.S. fail to offer experiential learning as a primary mode of instruction for their students.  Unfortunately, the common themes in our schools continue to favor memorization and regurgitation over the development of skills essential to succeed in the twenty first century.  The most popular excuses for this phenomenon are associated with a lack of time, a lack of money, and a need to focus on delivering information that may appear on standardized tests. 

The following organizations operate within the confines traditinally imposed on public schools (e.g., time, money, and learning standards) and endeavor to offer experiential learning to students while maintaining a curricular emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).

Larry Rosenstock's High Tech High:

21st-century learning skills on display at High Tech High:

How does Rosenstock do it? This Edutopia interview provides some answers:

Creative Learning Systems can equip interested schools with the infrastructure necessary to build SmartLabs, an integrated appraoch to STEM education:

Tony Wagner, A Leader in Twenty-First Century Education

Tony Wagner is serving Harvard University as its first Innovation Educational Fellow within the college’s Technology and Entrepreneurship Center.  Wagner accepted this position after both founding the Change Leadership Group within the Harvard Graduate School of Education and serving as the organization’s co-director for more than a decade.  In addition, Wagner’s experience as a high school teacher, a K-8 principal, a university professor of education, and as the founder and director of Educators for Social Responsibility enable him to provide useful advice and poignant insight to institutions around the world as an educational consultant.

One of Wagner’s most important works is The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach the New Survival Skills Our Children Need – And What We Can Do About It (2008).  Wagner argues that while U.S. educational policy aims at closing the achievement gap between high-performing students and low-performing students (admittedly a praiseworthy goal), the policy fails to teach the skills necessary for success in the twenty first century.  Wagner outlines his “seven survival skills” necessary for success in careers, college, and citizenship:

                1) critical thinking and problem solving;

                2) collaboration across networks and leading by influence;
                3) agility and adaptability;
                4) initiative and entrepreneurialism;
                5) effective oral and written communication;
                6) accessing and analyzing information; and
                7) curiosity and imagination.

If our schools are either unwilling or unable to realign curriculum so the focus becomes the cultivation of these skills within students, then the U.S. will not adequately prepare its citizens to be competitive in the globalized labor market; for while students in California are preoccupied with regurgitating relatively meaningless facts about the Civil War (e.g., specific dates, particular generals, etc.), students in Finland are more likely to study the causes and consequences of all civil war, research and debate the plausibility of alternate courses of action, and work in groups to design web-based nonprofit groups that attempt to positively affect a region experiencing civil strife or civil war.

Want to learn more about Tony Wagner?

Click HERE for a link to a PowerPoint slideshow that summarizes The Global Achievement Gap.

Click HERE to view a Q & A session between Tony Wagner and Kevin Conlon about The Global Achievement Gap.

TED Talk — Dr. Tony Wagner, co-director of Harvard's Change Leadership Group has identified what he calls a "global achievement gap," which is the distance between what even our best schools are teaching, and the must-have skills of the future:

If you like what you see, click HERE to learn about Tony Wagner’s new book, Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World (2012), or view this trailer:

TEDxNYED, April 28, 2012:  Tony Wagner on innovation.

Inspiring STEM Video - How Video Games are Made

I asked fifth and sixth graders "what they want to do when they grow up"? Their answers were diverse and unexpected. Rather than the cliche policeman or fireman, most said they desire to work for a company that makes lots of money, but they couldn't be more specific than that. A few students (male and female) mentioned making videos or video games. I stumbled across this video and thought it might be worth showing to students who are considering a career in the video game industry.

-James Mc.

STEM Commercial - a glimpse of future non-STEM job applicants

Knowledge is Power

"Numbers inform, but graphics convince" - J. Gentilucci

Words from a wise man to illustrate the point that a graphic representation of data can convince the reader better than strict numbers can.

Karl Fisch, of thefischbowl.blogspot.com, created a presentation on education, population, employment, and economic data collected on countries throughout the world. The presentation has been updated from the original version in 2006 and continues to convince multitudes of viewers.

Can Video Reinvent Education?

In a world filled with technology that is outdated from month to month, can video sustain or even replace the way we educate ourselves? Salman Kahn believes that educational videos are the key to enriching our education system. 

Salman talks about how and why he created the remarkable Khan Academy, a carefully structured series of educational videos offering complete curricula in math and, now, other subjects. He shows the power of interactive exercises, and calls for teachers to consider flipping the traditional classroom script -- give students video lectures to watch at home, and do "homework" in the classroom with the teacher available to help.

In 2004, Salman Khan, a hedge fund analyst, began posting math tutorials on YouTube. Six years later, he has posted more than 2.000 tutorials, which are viewed nearly 100,000 times around the world each day.

Building Blocks as Educational Tools

When we think of building blocks, we often imagine Lincoln Logs or Legos with their basic, but solid construction elements. The building blocks Ayah Bdeir has created will not only alter the way you view building blocks, but will also redefine playtime.


Imagine a set of electronics as easy to play with as Legos. TED Fellow Ayah Bdeir introduces littleBits, a set of simple, interchangeable blocks that make programming as simple and important a part of creativity as snapping blocks together.


Ayah Bdeir is an engineer and artist, and is the founder of littleBits and karaj, an experimental art, architecture and technology lab in Beirut.