Posted by
Grace Suh in
I’m a former English major who happens to love math. I find elegance – and some solace – in an ever-complex world when I discover a cadence or logic in nature, such as the Fibonacci sequence in broccoli or the patterns of a snowflake. And as someone working to improve STEM education (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), I know that it’s critical for young people to master mathematical concepts so they’ll be prepared for both college and career.
One way to bring math to life for young people is to teach them about those great thinkers who found mathematical elegance in the complexities of the world around them. One resource is Minds of Modern Mathematics, a free iPad app from IBM that illustrates the impact of math on culture and society. In the same way that science and engineering can help us connect mathematical principles to practical applications, an examination of the history of mathematical ideas can help us contextualize them in our world.
Another way to engender students’ love of math is through hands-on learning. Sites like Teachers TryScience, which provide teachers with engaging and informative project-based lessons, integrated with pedagogical and practical resources to teach them effectively, require students to apply math skills as they build a wind turbine or determine the amount of carbon stored in a tree.
Most jobs today require a knowledge of math. And high-demand, high-paying careers need young women and men from all backgrounds who can perform complex mathematics. Even “no math” jobs require people who can think in mathematical ways. For example, a lawyer uses skills that enable her to reason logically and methodically – the same skills that she began mastering while studying algebra.
Grace Suh is a Senior Program Manager with IBM Corporate Citizenship & Corporate Affairs.
Download the free Minds of Modern Mathematics iPad app
Read the IBM Research announcement about the app
Related Resources:
Presentation: What Is STEM Learning?
Posted by
Margaret Honey in
Policymakers, educators and other stakeholders agree that all students – no matter where they live, what educational path they pursue, or in which field they choose to work – need to be science literate if they are to drive future innovation and to contribute to the rapidly changing global economy. To meet this charge, schools have been challenged to redefine mathematics and science education to support multiple strands of inquiry and exploration across the curriculum. The challenge is to offer tools that help students experience excitement, motivation and interest with respect to the natural and built world; develop and use scientific explanations, concepts and models; generate scientific evidence to understand issues; reflect on science as a way of knowing; participate in science practices (e.g., presenting their findings); and identify themselves as science learners capable of doing science.
For this transformation to occur, the Carnegie Corporation’s Institute for Advanced Study Commission on Mathematics and Science Education argues we must move away from the current system of “telling” students about science to one that helps students gain critical problem-solving and inquiry skills in the context of relevant, real-world, interdisciplinary problems. While it’s clear from the Commission’s research that young people care deeply about contemporary STEM-related (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) problems and are motivated to solve them (e.g., health and global warming), many teachers see such investigations as daunting to implement. Furthermore, with rapid advances in science and technology, schools often have limited access to up-to-date resources, strategies and pedagogical supports to bring such relevant content into the classroom creatively.
Design-based teaching and learning can help teachers and students address the challenges of science literacy and offer a new and effective approach to STEM engagement. Design is a process by which people from diverse fields make decisions about the form, function, and use of materials to create artifacts, systems and tools that solve a range of problems, large and small. By focusing on design, one learns how to identify a problem or need, how to consider design options and constraints, and how to plan, model, test and iterate solutions to vexing problems, making higher-order thinking skills tangible and visible. Design-based activities can be intrinsically motivating to teachers and students because they engage the desire to make things and learn how things work. Design also responds to the interdisciplinary complexity of life, requiring that multiple areas of expertise be brought to bear on real-world problems, making it a natural approach for integrating STEM into all subject areas.
Teachers TryScience is a resource, developed by IBM in partnership with the New York Hall of Science and others, that is intended to help teachers introduce design-based science practices into their classrooms. The site contains engaging lesson plans; media assets, such as videos and podcasts that provide “how-to” tips and strategies for teachers; and collaboration tools that foster discussion and a sense of community.
Engaging in activities such as designing solar cars, creating water filtration systems and exploring possibilities for alternative energy sources all help learners develop a deep conceptual understanding of the knowledge and principles of a domain, and support the development of self-guided inquiry skills that are often difficult to teach. To teach STEM effectively through design, teachers need to experience the excitement of how design can be used to address 21st-century challenges, learn how to guide and facilitate such investigations with students, and gain strategies and resources that help them integrate design-based STEM teaching in the classroom. Doing this work while engaging with a larger and like-minded community of educators is exactly what Teachers TryScience supports.
Margaret Honey, Ph.D., is President and CEO of the New York Hall of Science.
Related Article:
Posted by
Stanley S. Litow in
“Can we extract lessons from the for-profit world and apply them to philanthropy?” That’s the question being asked by Harvard Business School and other institutions that are training tomorrow’s global leaders. At the recent Center for Social Value Creation (CSVC) Social Enterprise Symposium, I spoke with University of Maryland M.B.A. students to help them understand the evolution of philanthropy, and their roles in creating sustainable value to help build a smarter planet.
Young leaders need to understand that corporate philanthropy is an integral part of a successful and sustainable business strategy. For an organization to survive, its core values must remain consistent in a world where everything else is guaranteed to change.
So when it comes to philanthropy, the phrase “from spare change to real change” must represent a values-based commitment to social responsibility. In IBM’s case, this means deploying our best technology and talent to address critical societal issues around the world.
Watch this video to learn about how programs such as the Corporate Service Corps,
P-TECH, and World Community Grid are raising the effectiveness of public-private partnerships to new levels. Read what city mayors and volunteer experts are saying
about improving the quality of life in cities – where 70 percent of the world’s population
lives. Find out how nonprofit leaders are using private-sector management skills to deliver social services more efficiently.
In the world’s most forward-thinking academic, civic, and corporate environments, tomorrow’s leaders are learning from Day One to work together to help manage global challenges. Organizations that seek to lead will attract, motivate and retain top talent by giving them opportunities for service. Meanwhile, the world’s leading enterprises will continue to adapt to change while maintaining their core values of innovation, service,
and citizenship.
Stanley S. Litow is IBM’s Vice President of Corporate Citizenship & Corporate Affairs
and President of the IBM International Foundation.
Related Resources:
Download “Corporate Social Responsibility: An Integrated Approach” (presentation)
Harvard Business Review: “IBM Corporate Citizenship Efforts ‘Enrich the Ecosystem’”
2010 IBM Corporate Responsibility Report
Posted by
Robin Willner in
IBM’s “5 in 5” forecast of innovations that will alter the technology landscape within the next five years includes the prediction that mobile technologies will close the digital divide between rich and poor. In the very near future, mobile devices and over-air networks will enable disconnected and disenfranchised populations to circumvent traditional infrastructures to participate in the global economy. However, substantive innovations in the technology of learning must complement our advances in global connectivity.
Technology’s most profound impact on underserved populations can be its ability to improve education, but simply “having” technology is not enough. A computer, for instance, can never replace a good teacher. And internet access and computer labs alone cannot improve instruction. But when technology is well integrated into the classroom and coupled with teacher training, it can enable essential improvements in teaching and learning.
Integral to our corporate citizenship efforts, IBM is forging public-private partnerships to create a smarter education system by strengthening the focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) competencies. In addition, we have longstanding programs that continue to open new possibilities to people around the world.
- Our Reading Companion program uses IBM speech recognition technology to help children and adults gain literacy skills in English.
- IBM’s automatic translation project – ¡TradúceloAhora! (“translate now”) – uses our WebSphere Translation Server software to provide bilingual English/Spanish email translations to enhance communications between English-speaking teachers and Spanish-speaking parents.
- In partnership with TeachEngineering and the New York Hall of Science, Teachers TryScience provides new resources, specifically designed for science teachers struggling to provide high quality, hands-on problem based learning.
These are just a few of the many ways – from helping our retirees transition to teaching, to reinforcing our commitment to mentoring and school volunteerism – in which IBM is helping to improve the technology of learning that must accompany the advances that will close the digital divide.
Posted by
Rod Adkins in
For the second consecutive time, FORTUNE magazine has named IBM as the #1 Global Company for Leaders. As part of our series on IBM Leadership, Rod Adkins, Senior Vice President of IBM’s Systems & Technology Group, comments on how partnerships between the private and public sectors can help fill the need for tomorrow’s science and technology leaders.
Growing the global economy will require leadership and innovation on many fronts. In the knowledge economy, there is plenty of evidence that those who have strong math and science skills will drive innovation for future generations. We need to recognize the need to invest in education for the long term.
In the United States, we need innovators with backgrounds in math and science to spur growth and generate new jobs. However, the facts in this area of education are alarming.
- According to the National Science Foundation, the percentage of U.S.students studying math, science, and engineering has decreased from 21 percent in the 1980s to approximately 16 percent today.
- The most recent Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development test scores show that the U.S. was below the average score in math and only at the average in science.
- The situation is even more dire for minority students, who are pursuing pure science and engineering degrees to an even lesser degree. Currently fewer than 13 percent of the more than 70,000 U.S. engineering bachelor’s degrees are awarded to minorities, according to the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering.
In order for companies like IBM, and the U.S. as a whole, to stay competitive in a global economy, both business leaders and policy makers must work to fix this trend. Developing a new generation of innovators requires greater private-public partnerships that encourage more students to specialize in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math).
Rod Adkins and Principal Rashid Davis at P-TECH
Here in New York, the Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-TECH) is a new grades 9-14 school that opened in September. The school is a collaboration among the New York City Department of Education, The City University of New York, the New York College of Technology and IBM and is designed to prepare students to fill entry-level careers in technology fields. Such pro-active intervention helps increase the number of minorities who can fill leadership roles in the technology industry. I’ve had the privilege of mentoring P-TECH’s principal, Rashid Davis, and have seen first-hand the excitement and hope that he and the school have inspired in the new students.
And in Chicago, a grant from IBM is helping to raise the city’s high school and community college graduation rates and better prepare graduates to enter the 21st century workforce. IBM is also dispatching a team of technology consultants to Chicago for three-months — the result of an IBM Smarter Cities Challenge grant. The grant will help Chicago prepare a business plan to personalize education for students, allowing them to build the necessary skills to put them at the front of the line for quality, high-paying jobs upon graduation. The team will work with educators and city leaders to evaluate ways Chicago can better align its education system with the needs of knowledge workers in the private sector.
These are just some examples of how private-public partnerships can help put students on track to pursue STEM careers. Just as successful companies invest in R&D to produce future innovations, so too must all levels of society invest in STEM education to produce the innovators of tomorrow.
BOTTOM LINE: Just as companies invest in R&D, society must invest in STEM education. #ibmleaders
More from Rod Adkins:
Calling for Innovators: Our Students Must Learn to Create New Technologies, Not Just Enjoy Them
Read more about IBM Leadership:
Why IBM Is the Best Company for Leaders by Randy MacDonald, Senior Vice President, Human Resources
A Global View of Leadership Development by StanleyS. Litow, Vice President of Corporate Citizenship & Corporate Responsibility and President, IBM International Foundation
Entrepreneurship Takes Homework, Not Hubris, by Sharon Nunes, Vice President, Government Industry Strategy & Solutions
A New Model to Cultivate Global Leaders by Tony Mwai, Country General Manager, East Africa
Leadership Must Evolve in an Interconnected World by Bridget van Kralingen, General Manager, North America
Posted by
Robin Willner in
I testified today before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Research and Science Education about IBM’s commitment to address the issue of national decline in math, science and engineering and its implications for America’s labor force. The Subcommittee on Research and Science Education oversees all matters related to science policy and science education. In my remarks, I noted that over the last 20 years IBM has been one of the leading corporate contributors of cash, technology and IT services to non-profit organizations and educational institutions around the world. During that time, IBM’s most effective grants and partnerships have been those that focus on our unique offerings – leveraging our software, hardware, technical services and expertise. In addition, IBM has been most successful when designing initiatives to bring our employees’ skills and experience into the classroom to interact directly with students, teachers and administrators.
Leading examples of IBM’s approach to “smarter education” are our Transition to Teaching program for retiring employees, and our partnership with civic and education leaders to create New York City’s Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-TECH) – an innovative grades nine through 14 institution that confers both the high school diploma and a no-cost associate degree in technology. P-TECH prepares graduates for entry-level positions with IBM and other leading technology companies. More than 100 IBMers are participating in Transition to Teaching, which helps prepare them for a second career teaching math and science. And the P-TECH model has garnered the attention of the White House and of city leaders across the country who seek to replicate the school’s success in their districts.
Education and employment in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) is a vital component of the American economy, and the private sector can play an important role in closing the gap between where we are and where we need to be. Workers in STEM occupations out earn their peers, enjoy long and stable careers, and represent the next generation of global innovators. But our economic growth is threatened by a severe shortage of math and science teachers, and by shortfalls in STEM academic achievement – particularly in historically underrepresented communities already bearing the brunt of tough economic times. The solution lies in a collaborative and multi-faceted approach to improving STEM education at all levels – from replacing retiring math and science teachers, to strengthening the skills of current educators, to forging private sector partnerships with schools and communities to ensure that our students can make the transition from education to industry.
Watch the archived webcast of my House Subcommittee Testimony to learn more about IBM’s commitment to smarter education.
In October 2011, 95 IBM mentors met with their protégés at New York’s Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-TECH) for the first time. P-TECH is a new model grades 9 through 14 school located in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, and many of its students will be the first in their families to attain the associate degree they’ll receive along with their high school diplomas. It’s going to be a long haul for the ninth graders of P-TECH’s inaugural class, their teachers and their mentors. But if P-TECH’s remarkable 100% attendance rate, the inspired leadership of the school’s principal and teachers, and the dedication of IBM’s volunteer mentors is any indication, those years will be full of promise and reward. IBMer Christine Vu was one of the mentors who visited P-TECH.
Christine’s story: “When I asked my protégé Indica why she enrolled in P-TECH, the most striking thing she said was ‘Other classmates and I would be the first graduating class, and to me I find that to be something big.’ Indica’s words made me think: It is big! Aside from graduating with a high school diploma and an associate degree in technology, Indica will have the opportunity to shape and define what this academic experiment will look like, and help determine whether it can be successful for future students in New York and around the country.
What Indica said also made me wonder what impact I would have as her mentor. I think the act of mentorship is as much about fulfilling the role you wish someone had played in your life when you were younger as it is about giving to others. When I was in high school, I had a challenging and rigorous schedule filled with AP classes and extracurricular activities. But this left little time for me to engage with teachers or other adults on what was happening in the greater society. It seemed like there was no one to challenge my thoughts and ideas, or to help me visualize my future as an adult or as a professional. I ended up forming these impressions through the process of trial and error during college.
While Indica and I are different people from different backgrounds, she has many of the same dreams and goals that I had at her age. Indica wants to learn and to grow, and to be successful in all aspects of her life. After visiting P-TECH, I am confident that Indica will have the lesson plans and resources she’ll need to build up her technical knowledge and skills.
Meanwhile, I plan to be available when Indica has the ‘other’ questions such as ‘How important are internships?’, ‘Why should I vote?’, or ‘Do I really need to spell check?’”
Further Resources:
- Watch the CNN Video coverage of the P-TECH Mentor Event
- Visit IBM MentorPlace
- “Volunteerism and Citizenship: One Mentor’s Story” by Ethan McCarty
- “Degrees Remain Elusive for Most Community College Students” by Stanley S. Litow, President, IBM International Foundation
