2. Appropriation of Government Spending and Research in STEM Education In a report published by Henderson, Beach, and Finkelstein (2011), as illustrated in the chart below, most of the money, research, and attention allocated for STEM education has gone towards improving teaching methods and the design of new curricula; however, little focus has been placed on the architectural design of STEM learning environments to support this new approach to teaching. 3 It is with this knowledge that one can hypothesize an equivalent investment in sustainable architecture for STEM education will better combat the current national concerns associated with STEM. Focusing on changing the behavior without changing the environment in which this behavior takes place has come short of fully addressing the issue. The investment in new STEM curricula and teaching methods must be accommodated by an environment that supports this new form of education. We cannot expect large degrees of improvement by solely changing curricula and teaching methods if the built environment is not also changed in accordance with these new approaches to education. “Better models of the STEM ecosystem are needed to make investment decisions for the billions of dollars of investment in STEM.”4 Therefore, in order to better combat the STEM crisis, an equal investment needs to go towards designing, building, and testing environments that will best cater to the needs of STEM education. Figure 4:
4 Categories of Change Strategies to address the STEM Crisis
Envrionment & Structures Goal: Create environments/structures that require new teaching conceptions and/or practices. Empower stakeholders to collectively develop new environments/structures that support new teaching conceptions and/or practices.
SHARED VISION
8
28 POLICY
30 CURRICULA & PEDAGOGY
34
Individuals Goal: Teach individuals about new teaching conceptions and/or practices. Encourage individuals to develop new teaching conceptions and/or practices.
REFLECTIVE TEACHERS
3. Henderson, C., Beach, A., & Finkelstein, N. (2011) 4. Valerdi, R. (2013)
7
architects
