How to Teach Your Students about Careers in STEM
As educators, we have a responsibility to introduce 21st century STEM careers to our students early and to stay informed on the large variety of opportunities in STEM fields.. Our students' perceptions of scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians are often far different from the reality of what STEM professionals look like today. We often say in education that we are preparing our students for jobs that don’t exist yet. Though that may ultimately be true, we are also preparing our students for the jobs that already do exist (many of which we may not even know about).
Teachers and students are in makerspaces making and creating with their students everyday. They are facilitating awesome STEM projects and teaching design thinking. They have the toys, the process, and the teaching mindset, but the long term goal is often missing. Teaching our students about STEM careers is the fundamental final step in the STEM education revolution. Although many schools are leading hands-on, project-based lessons to prepare their students for their futures in STEM, the focus must also be on increasing student awareness and exposing students to various career paths. This is especially important for our female students, as the opportunities for women in STEM continue to grow. The more we encourage diversity in STEM careers the more perspectives we will have to solve our world’s greatest problems in years to come.
WhyMaker’s mission is for all teachers to be confident and comfortable teaching STEM education. We’ve put together resources and recommendations for how you can teach yourself and your students about all of the different careers and opportunities that exist in science, technology, engineering and math.
Provide First-Hand Experiences:
There is no lesson more valuable than the first-hand perspective of a community guest sharing their own experiences in their career, bringing in real artifacts from their workplace and sharing their stories. As a classroom teacher, we often see student engagement at an all time high when we invite guest speakers into our classrooms or visit their workplace for field trips, especially those who look like our students. Post on LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram asking for interviews, descriptions or connections of STEM people in your community. With technology today, there are so many possibilities for bringing professionals into your classroom from all over the world via video conferencing.
Encourage Curiosity:
Start with your own personal and professional network. You surely know people in STEM careers. Ask them about their day-to-day and how they wound up in their field. Challenge your students to do the same. Everyday, we interact with people, places and things that are connected to STEM careers. Look around your community and find businesses that peak your curiosity of what goes on or what professional work there. Find a contact person and email them explaining you're a teacher and you are looking for opportunities to teach your students about different careers. You never know if this will end up in a community guest, a potential field trip or just an opportunity for you to learn about a new career that you could bring back to your students. There are also countless books and podcasts that students can read and listen to in class or on their own. Allow them to ask questions and share what they learn. We encourage listening to podcasts about STEM careers, such as STEMXM and Planted, and sharing them with students. If you’re looking for read alouds or books to include in your library, we love “What Can I Be? STEM Careers A to Z” and “Everyday Superheroes - Women in STEM Careers”.
Expose Students to New Job Titles:
Most students already have some awareness of the more popular STEM job titles that they may have more frequent interactions with. The goal is to expose students to new job titles they never knew existed. Start by sharing our STEM Careers Playlist with your class. Consider introducing a new job every week and incorporate that career into your morning meetings, word problems, lessons, experiments or homework. Encourage students to listen for each professional's explanation of their daily experience at their job, why they chose that field and the reasons they enjoy what they do. Lead a discussion with your students about things they heard in the videos that they think they would like or would be interested in learning more about. There are so many additional videos and playlists that introduce STEM careers. Here are a few more of our favorites: CareerTrekBC Videos, STEM Career Video Series, and Owl Guru Career Page.
Promote Project-Based Learning:
There is power in preparing our students for STEM careers by promoting hands-on lessons and project-based learning in our classroom. Engage students with real world examples that are applicable to what they may experience in their future STEM careers. If you are not sure how to teach STEM project-based learning, consider offering a WhyMaker Professional Development Workshop with your staff or check out this blog post explaining the difference between activities, projects and project-based learning.
Research, Research, Research:
Host a Mock Career Fair where students research specific career choices and present for the school community, parents and teachers to attend. Challenge students to complete the STEM Career Scavenger Hunt. There are countless resources and programs online that make it easy for your students to research themselves about different careers. Check out programs like Couragion. It is an online platform for teachers to use in schools that help students understand what a day in the life of different STEM careers. Students learn about STEM careers, practice skills and create career plans.
Introduce Alternative Paths:
Connect with your local Career and Technical Education (CTE) program to have someone explain to your students about additional paths after they graduate high school such as learning a trade that may be a better fit for them than going to college. It’s important to introduce all options to our students so they can confidently make their own decisions when they graduate. They can learn about starting a trades program in high school or even middle school like our friends at PNW BOCES. Additionally, it’s important that we highlight the certificate programs and boot camps, such as General Assembly, that exist to learn lucrative 21st century skills. From computer science to User Experience (UX) design, students can truly learn any skills they want online without needing a college degree. Lastly, connect with local community colleges and universities. These organizations will do anything to get the opportunity to talk to potential students. Ask them to bring in students that are studying STEM majors and ask them why they choose that major and what they do everyday.
We have an obligation to our students to know the variety of STEM careers and job titles that are already out there beyond the obvious. However, many of us have spent our careers in the same field: education. We may not have had the opportunities to experience STEM careers for ourselves and thus, we may lack the preparation we need to confidently teach our students about STEM careers. Research from the National Survey of Science and Mathematics Education reports that only 36% of teachers feel prepared to develop student awareness about STEM careers. We need to help our students to explore and learn about the magnitude of STEM jobs that exist and expose them to first-hand experiences with STEM professionals early on and more frequently. There is power in having a lifetime of exposure to careers options. The earlier and more often we provide access to opportunities for our students, the more informed choices they will be able to make in the future.