Secrets to Successfully Implementing a STEM Program

Sparking students’ interest in STEM learning and STEM related careers has become a top priority for many school districts. The demand for skilled employees in science, technology, engineering and math career fields continues to rise as the world becomes more technically complex and innovative, and schools need to graduate students with these STEM skills in order to keep up with highly technical and ever-changing world.

STEM skills are beneficial to more than just an engineer or mathematician. Various organizations and companies are in need of workers skilled in STEM, and students going out in the world without STEM skills may be unprepared to succeed in numerous career fields.

The need for STEM skills in the workforce has driven schools such as Nipmuc Regional High School, located in Upton, MA, to take initiative in developing a rigorous STEM program to interest students in STEM learning and prepare them for future careers in STEM-related fields.

After receiving positive feedback from students regarding internship experiences at Boston Children’s Hospital, the school realized two things: One, students wanted to participate in opportunities that brought them into the workforce and helped them build on skills they could use in the future, and two, the school needed to make a better effort at providing its students with career-shadowing and internship opportunities.

“The Boston Children’s Hospital internship opportunities had very little to do with the school. There was a gap there; we were not providing [these experiences]. We were missing the boat and we weren’t getting students ready for what was in real life,” said John Clements, principal at Nipmuc Regional High School.

After discussing the need for a STEM program in Nipmuc, Clements and Nipmuc’s assistant principal, Mary Anne Moran, started a small, grant funded STEM program to implement STEM learning and prepare students for future careers in STEM.

“We wanted kids to be engaged; we wanted them to have hands-on learning, we wanted buy-in and we wanted to raise the bar for everyone,” said Clements.

At the Massachusetts STEM Summit 2015 in Worcester, MA, Clements and Moran shared the steps they took to implement a successful STEM program at Nipmuc during a one hour session. Here are their 10 “quick wins” for STEM integration and programming:

1. Listen to your students.

It is difficult to successfully implement a new system or program into a school without buy-in from everyone associated with the school, especially students.

“First, schools must learn how to get feedback from students,” said Clements.

Understanding what students are looking to learn and understand from a STEM program, or any program for that matter, is important to a program’s success. Having access to the right tools to receive this feedback is important as well.

“We used senior exit interview for our kids. They can be honest. We do this through Google Forms, which is a great entry point to using technology. We ask our kids 30 questions about their experience. This helps to build a school improvement plan,” said Clements.

Survey tools that provide schools with valuable feedback from students are important in not only understanding what students want in a STEM program, but also in measuring a program’s success.

2. Create a vision.

Establishing goals and creating a vision of what your school is looking to accomplish with a STEM program should be a top priority during the initial implementation. Clements and Moran provided four values Nipmuc created and continues to stand by to help maintain the success of its STEM program:

1. Provide challenging and relevant learning experiences in STEM disciplines.

2. Establish the job skills needed for success in STEM related fields.

3. Provide professional learning experiences through job shadowing and internship opportunities.

4. Provide a clear understanding of college admissions requirements and collegiate learning experiences in STEM fields.

Allowing students to have a realistic understanding of what a STEM career entails is important to their commitment to learning the skills necessary to be successful in both college and their future careers.

3. Eliminate barriers to AP enrollment.

Advanced Placement courses are traditionally understood as highly challenging, college-level courses. Often competitive and difficult to be accepted into, many students are unable to participate in AP courses. Nipmuc decided to eliminate any barriers to AP enrollment in its school in order to give every student the opportunity to be better prepared for college through challenging and rigorous AP courses.

“Kids who take AP courses do better in college. Even if you get a two on the test, if you work hard in an environment defined by high expectations and are exposed to the curriculum, you will do well in college,” said Clements.

Nipmuc offers 17 AP courses for its 614 students, and 67% of those students have taken at least one AP course.

“Our kids got access to resources and we changed the mindset. We believed our kids could do it and we have redefined what it means to be a high achiever,” said Clements. “We know they are better prepared. We know they are getting the experiences they need in order to do well in college.”

The more students are exposed to challenging learning experiences, especially in regards to STEM, the more prepared they will be for college course loads and a STEM related career.

4. Develop an advisory board.

It is difficult for a small handful of educators to implement a successful STEM program. Developing an advisory board that includes STEM experts as well as members of the community can help provide a school support, proper resources and expert advice as to how to help students build skills they need to succeed in STEM-related fields.

“Our advisory board started with a phone call to a parent who was head of Pathology at Boston Children’s Hospital,” said Moran. “We are not all STEM experts, you need an expert.”

Nipmuc’s advisory board was developed from the very beginning of its initial STEM program implementation and includes teachers, community members, department chairs and parents.

“There are a lot of parents out there that want to be involved. This is an extremely meaningful way for parents to be involved in their kid’s education,” said Moran.

Moran further explained that parents can help give schools an outside perspective and also become a school’s workforce through networking and connecting the school with friends and relatives who work in STEM fields.