HOW TOP-DOWN INVOLVEMENT IMPROVES STEM EDUCATION & WORKFORCE INNOVATION

By Rich Templeton

Growing up in a community in northern New York State, where the high-tech industry was a significant feature of the area economy, I was surrounded by engaged and effective math and science teachers who made the subject matter come to life for me. Today at Texas Instruments (TI), I work with many people who share a similar passion for science, technology, engineering and math education (STEM) and know firsthand how its application can change the world. 

Improving STEM education is an issue that’s critical to the future of our communities, state and nation, and it needs the personal involvement of business and community leaders. It demands our attention and involvement as employers and citizens.    

 Recently, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings and about 40 Dallas CEOs and “C-level” executives joined with TI and United Way of Metropolitan Dallas for an innovative “STEM in the Schoolyard” project. We worked side-by-side with fifth-graders at the Dallas Independent School District’s Gabe P. Allen Charter School, conducting interactive experiments to enrich the students’ knowledge and explore key STEM principles.

Students from Gabe P. Allen Charter School in Dallas with TI CEO Rich Templeton

United Way focuses on education as one of the key issues facing our communities and brings together resources to make a real impact. “STEM in the Schoolyard” was supported by two United Way partners – Real School Gardens and the Museum of Nature & Science. We worked with the students to build solar ovens from pizza boxes and power calculators with potatoes.  This collaboration on a personal level was very rewarding, but more than anything, it showed these students that science and math are important to their community and their own future.

Why STEM Matters

The quality of our education infrastructure – particularly science and math education – will be a critical factor in defining the future economic success of our region, state and nation.  As the world becomes more technologically demanding, a solid foundation in these disciplines is more important than ever. These are the skills that employees of 21^st century companies must have to innovate and be successful. 

STEM touches many career fields. STEM jobs are growing three times faster than non-STEM jobs, and STEM workers earn 26 percent more than their non-STEM counterparts. Even jobs in trade professions such as auto mechanics or welding require competency today in algebra, geometry and electronics. Workforce projections for 2014 show that 15 of the 20 fastest-growing jobs will require math or science training, and that by 2018 there will be 1.2 million job openings in STEM-related fields, but a shortage of people to fill them. Our biggest challenge:  Fewer students are studying and graduating in these areas.

U.S. businesses are deeply rooted in innovation, and, if we want to continue to be leaders in technology and research and keep generating job growth, then we need an intense and collective focus on STEM education to succeed. 

Action Is Needed

First, federal and state governments and independent school districts (ISDs) need to prioritize policies that promote improved performance in math and science coursework for all demographics. This includes high standards and measured accountability to assure student achievement and highly effective instruction.

And second, as the principle funder and customer of the public education system, the business community has a very important role to expand proven STEM initiatives through advocacy, investments, volunteerism and collaboration with government, schools, nonprofit organizations and other corporate stakeholders.  

At TI and the TI Foundation, these types of partnerships have enabled us to impact STEM awareness, teaching effectiveness and student achievement in the following ways. 

The TI Foundation supports the Advanced Placement™ (AP) Incentive Program, which is now offered in all Dallas ISD high schools and in Mesquite ISD, and is being scaled nationwide by the National Math & Science Initiative (NMSI). Since the TI Foundation’s partnership with Dallas schools began in 2000, more than 18,500 North Texas students have passed AP exams for college credit. Many other corporations and foundations recognize the impact of this initiative and also support it with time and resources.

TI also developed  the MathForward program in conjunction with Richardson ISD in 2005 where technology, teacher training and funding has significantly narrowed the achievement gap for Hispanic, African American and economically disadvantaged students in middle school math. The program has grown to 18 states, 76 districts and more than 300 schools.

TI and the TI Foundation partner with UTeach, a University of Texas-founded program to recruit, prepare and retain more qualified STEM teachers. Since 2009, the TI Foundation has funded programs at three North Texas universities. As a result, the number of future educators in science and math education has increased significantly. In fact, these programs are expected to produce about 800 math and science teachers by 2018.  During the course of their careers, those teachers will serve nearly a quarter of a million students. 

The TI Foundation also is working with a local school district to pilot a district-wide implementation of a more impactful STEM instruction protocol. Going forward, it will donate up to $4.8 million to help Lancaster ISD partner with Educate Texas, a public-private initiative designed by Communities Foundation of Texas. The intent of this collaboration is to create a STEM education model that other districts will replicate across Texas.

Eleven years ago 30 women employees from TI made personal contributions to establish a donor-advised fund at the Dallas Women’s Foundation because they were concerned about the low number of women graduating with technology-related degrees. With additional support from other employees and the TI Foundation, “High-Tech High Heels” has become an effective strategy to close the gender gap in the STEM fields and helped thousands of educators and students; it exists because these TI women cared and got personally involved.

In addition, this year TI helped launch the first-ever STEM engineering patch with the Girl Scouts in Northeast Texas. Available to 35,000 girls in kindergarten through 12^th grade, this curriculum will make learning more about STEM fun, and we’ve encouraged local female engineers to get involved and serve as role models.

Texas is a great state in which to do business, but we need to ensure that our workforce can support the growth and innovation to keep our economy moving forward. Government, education, business and community leaders need to make STEM proficiency a statewide and national imperative. We can help by investing in proven programs that work and get measurable results, and by getting personally involved. The rewards are great. We can make a difference.

Rich Templeton is Chairman, President and CEO of Dallas-based Texas Instruments and is on the board of trustees of Southern Methodist University and Southwestern Medical Foundation. www.ti.com

PLAYING WITH OUR POTENTIAL:  THE FUTURE TEXAS WORKFORCE

By Laura Seargeant Richardson

The headlines are staggering. According to Newsweek the United States is in a creativity crisis. TIME reports that today’s students are less tolerant of ambiguity and have an aversion to complexity. The Futurist suggests the biggest challenge facing our children is their inability to think realistically, creatively and hopefully about the future. And when the New York Times recently asked 18 high school seniors to predict their future only three hoped to have a career with a STEM focus such as a doctor or microbiologist. Not a single engineer was among them.
 
In 2004, Governor Perry announced his vision for building Texas’ future economy. The answer, determined by the 2001 Cluster Mapping project, suggested that six industries were key contributors. These industries range from aerospace and biotechnology to computer technology and energy. Are we adequately preparing our children – our future workforce – to meet this challenge? Absolutely not.
 
During a recent visit to an Austin elementary school, I asked the head librarian what careers the children most discuss. She mentioned teachers, doctors and vets (because children experience those first hand) and more recently, the growing interest in being a soldier (because of our country’s increased coverage of war). Children also expressed being what they see within their families and few seem to have role models that are scientists or engineers. However, the librarian was proud to point out her growing repository of engineering books and took me to her materials room to show me the new collection called Engineering Is Elementary, produced by the Museum of Science. With topics ranging from Seeing Animal Sounds, Improving Play Dough and Marvelous Machines, the material was clearly compelling. But when I asked if the teachers were using them, she shook her head. “No,” she sighed, “it’s not part of the standard curriculum we are testing.” She was quick to add, “But there is one teacher using them – she teaches GT (gifted and talented).” What do we learn from this little exercise? “Teaching to the test” severely cripples the opportunity for students to discover anything outside the core curriculum. Even worse, only 7.5 percent of students statewide are in gifted programs according to 2010 statistics. Thus, the materials (however inspiring) will only be seen by roughly 8 out of 100 students. We need to start igniting the fire earlier – even middle school may be too late. Unfortunately, this isn’t our biggest challenge.
 
The documentary, 2 Million Minutes (the amount of time a student has in four high school years), highlights the stark contrast between the cultures of the United States, China and India. In China and India, engineering and science are seen as a “passport out of poverty.” Could this be our message to the minority majority? Perhaps, but it should have been our message twenty years ago. As one Harvard professor fretted, “It takes decades to create a high performing scientist or engineer.” The documentary also highlights something else. In India, engineering is no longer seen as cool. While a generation ago the students looked forward to the discipline, today they see it as a commodity furthering their country’s homogeneity. And they are right.
 
When I spoke last year at MIT on the future of play, I met Woodie Flowers, an emeritus professor of Mechanical Engineering. Dr. Flowers recently presented a disturbing conclusion to faculty – MIT engineers were not prepared for the real world. “Learning differential equations is training; learning to think using the insights from differential equations is education – they are profoundly different.” He concluded that the engineer of 2020 needs to focus on creativity and synthesis rather than analysis. While Austin’s Chamber of Commerce 2010 Education report suggests that our graduates are more academically prepared, this measurement is largely based on the TAKS test data. Additionally, the report states that EISD is addressing the students’ need to be “career-ready” by offering Chinese, robotics, and film production. Based on Dr. Flower’s definition, is this training or education? These additions to the curriculum are not wrong, but they may be misguided.
 
Recently I attended the documentary Race to Nowhere at a local Austin high school. The movie revealed that nearly 50 percent of college freshman must be remediated in basic math and English. Kids are cheating their way through school in an effort to keep up – we have made it impossible to succeed otherwise. You might say we have convinced students that it’s the most important 21st Century literacy. We have made them mediocre test takers in exchange for critical thinkers. After the movie, the Austin principal not only called the TAKS testing “ridiculous,” but also cited that her teachers must now “cultivate creative problem solving” because students don’t want to do it – they do not believe it is valued by our culture. And why would they?
 
The truth is, Texas is sending the wrong message. We don’t need great test takers – what we need are synaesthetic scientists, dimensional designers, and entrepreneurial engineers. Take my former employer, Trilogy, once described by Fast Company as Insanity Inc. Candidates didn’t simply need to program well, they needed to brainstorm all possible ideas for bubble wrap. In those people, the company found not only the best innovations, but the best builders of those ideas. And at frog design, we hire fluid thinkers – visual, product, and interaction designers, technologists and strategists – who can take on any complex challenge thrown at us by companies who thrive on change. Because our clients know the future is about making it.
 
In the end, the biggest disservice to our children is our inability to adequately prepare and excite them for the opportunities Texas creates. They have little concept of jobs that are beyond the basics: lawyer, doctor, hair dresser. What is a NoSql Developer? A Coumadin LVN? A Social Media Strategist? A “Future” Job Fair Day would have high school students researching the most futuristic jobs and introducing other kids to what the job entails. As Dean Kamen once said, “Societies get the best of what they celebrate.” Ask any Texas student what we celebrate and they will tell you – Football and TAKS testing. But simply “passing” won’t make Texas the next Silicon Valley.

Laura Seargeant Richardson is Principal Designer at frog design, Austin.

MAKING STEM FOR K-12 MORE ACCESSIBLE VIA MENTORSHIP AND CREATIVE ENGAGEMENT

By Dr. James Truchard

The National Academy of Engineering recently published the 14 Engineering Grand Challenges, authored by a select group of our country’s most esteemed scientific and engineering minds. The engineering grand challenges lay out the 14 most important and significant issues our world faces. By taking on society’s most pressing problems, engineers will improve quality of life throughout the world while also improving economic prosperity and stability. I often refer to these issues not only to highlight the need for more corporate and government funding and research and development in these areas, but more importantly, because students can use this list of challenges to easily identify a cause that they can get involved with and positively impact. 

In order to have any chance of finding solutions to these complex problems, we must first enhance student interest in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).  Of the developed nations, children in the U.S. perform in the bottom half on standardized math and science tests and show little interest in pursuing careers in science and engineering.  Their waning interest, combined with the impending retirement of the scientists and engineers of the Space Race era, will make it difficult for companies to produce necessary research and develop cutting-edge products here in the United States.  In order for the U.S. and Texas to maintain their competitive edge, we must foster the growth of domestic talent by encouraging young people to explore STEM.

We know what the problem is.  Students today find STEM irrelevant, difficult, and just plain boring. We’re raising a generation of digital natives who don’t know a world without Google, prefer texting to calling, and find email too slow. Today’s students desire to see the immediate impact of all things they do. We acknowledge that this mentality spills over into their educational environment as well.  It is our responsibility to stop talking about the problem and start helping change student attitudes regarding STEM.  The means by which we introduce and teach STEM must be more “hands-on.”  Even in the university setting, engineering students are too often drilled with math courses that seem irrelevant to them, which leads many freshmen to choose another major.

At National Instruments (NI), we are deeply committed to working with the leading programs in Texas and the U.S. that are directly addressing the pipeline of young people entering the technical workforce.   For the past 10 years, NI has been developing products specifically designed to inspire students and help them learn science and engineering through a hands-on approach. NI co-developed, with LEGO, the software for LEGO MINDSTORMS.  LEGO MINDSTORMS gives students the tools to design, build, and program robots that can perform a set of tasks, all decided by the student.  The software is based on our industry standard NI LabVIEW graphical programming software and is touching the lives of millions of students all over the world. Students are able to combine computers, software programming, logic, and physical construction in a manner that is not possible with any other youth product. 

LEGO MINDSTORMS is the key technology used in FIRST LEGO League, an after school competition for elementary and middle school students, which has become a favorite here in Texas.  The competition is run by FIRST, (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) and is the most popular robotics competition in the U.S.  FIRST competitions challenge students with difficult problems that they must solve using math and science skills, while also allowing them to develop leadership skills and learn the importance of teamwork. NI is a major supporter of FIRST along with many other great Texas companies such as Intel, Texas Instruments, Lockheed Martin, and Time Warner Cable.  I encourage more companies to get involved not only by offering financial support, but also by asking your engineers to become mentors for the middle and high school FIRST teams in your community.

If we are truly intent on re-chartering the course of education in this country, there is another group that needs our focus just as much as our youth: teachers.  Teacher preparation is an extremely important element of developing a talented high-tech workforce.  We are very fortunate here in Texas to have the UTeach program, started in the College of Natural Sciences at the University of Texas.  UTeach prepares math, science, and engineering majors to also be certified high school teachers without extending the amount of time needed to attain their bachelor’s degree.  UTeach is now being offered in 22 universities in 17 states and has been cited in both the America COMPETES Act and President Obama’s recent State of the Union address. UTeach is creating the nation’s most qualified math and science teachers, and it is imperative that more universities here in Texas offer UTeach programs.  NI’s co-founder, Jeff Kodosky, worked closely with UTeach founder and visionary Mary Ann Rankin, Dean of the College of Natural Sciences at UT Austin, to get this program off the ground.  Jeff and NI are proud to be active supporters of this critical program.  I also applaud the major support of ExxonMobil that has made the replication of UTeach possible across our state and the U.S.

While National Instruments and its partners create products and programs designed to prepare teachers and engage students to bring them into the world of STEM, these products and programs cannot have their full potential unlocked without respective elements of curriculum.  In order to allow our STEM teachers to share how they are using these elements of curriculum and what they are teaching, National Instruments has created K12Lab. K12Lab is a resource for teachers to share creative ways to engage students in STEM coursework. Now that more and more teachers are preparing themselves for the challenge of gaining and keeping students engaged in STEM, they need a place where they can share their experiences, their lessons plans, and their inspiring stories.

The children of today will be responsible for solving the engineering grand challenges. Industry, parents, and policy-makers can’t do it alone—it takes engaging products that allow them to “do engineering” to build the confidence that they can tackle tough problems. Additionally, we need the help of the teachers that touch our students’ lives for five out of seven days a week.  Together, we can inspire the students of today to become the innovators of tomorrow.

Dr. James Truchard is the co-founder and current president and CEO of National Instruments. Texas Governor Rick Perry appointed Truchard to the state’s Advisory Council on the Digital Economy and invited Truchard to chair the Texas Science, Technology, and Math Industry Advisory Council, which seeks to reverse the declining interest of young people in technical careers.