ORIGEN, CONCEPT AND PRACTICE OF STEM©
BY CHARLES E. VELA
1/23/2021
STEM: THE BRIDGE BETWEEN THE MENTAL AND THE PHYSICAL WORLDS
INTRODUCTION
Between 1988-1991, while working on the Mapping of the Brain at the Institute of Medicine of National Academy of Sciences and the MITRE Corporation in the modernization of Federal Telecommunications System, Charles Vela conceived the concept and the term of STEM.
Both engagements reaffirmed Vela six fundamental principles:
- The importance of deep and broad knowledge and an open mind.
- The importance of an interdisciplinary approach and teamwork to tackle complex problems.
- Most complex problems appear at the intersection (boundary and interface) of disciplines or components of a discipline and thus require an interdisciplinary approach
- The solution of complex problems is inspired by different bodies of knowledge, disciplines and technologies.
- The importance of differentiating between the essence of a problem (its complexity) and its appearance; its complexity from its complications.
- The importance of knowledge appropriation as the fundamental road to successful discovery and innovation.
EVOLUTION OF THE STEM PARADIGM
From 1988 to 1991, Vela read about the giants in science and discovered that their greatest qualities had been visualization, intuition, pattern recognition, modeling, conceptualization, abstraction, synthesis, command of mathematics and subject matter expertise, which Vela encapsulated into the STEM paradigm. Based on ideas passed on to us from the Greeks (particularly Archimedes, Pythagoras and Aristarchus), and from the Western civilization such as Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Leibnitz, La Place, Fourier, Franklin, Minkowski, Einstein, Bohr, Hilbert, Mendeleev, Friedmann, Lemaître, Gamow, Edison, Tesla , Turing, Feynman, Cajal, Mendel, and Cerf, among others, lies the foundation to human redemption. That is, STEM enables democracy, social justice, the restoration of our physical world, and the transformation of the human condition.
Visualization, intuition, pattern recognition, modeling, conceptualization, abstraction, synthesis, command of mathematics and subject matter expertise are the characteristics that Vela most admired in team members when solving complex problems. However, these characteristics where seldom found in an individual proper. Vela then decided to develop curriculum that would seamlessly integrate these qualities into one curriculum. This is what Vela called STEM.
As a result, for Vela, STEM is a concept and a term that represents a human capital development paradigm centering on the cultivation of intellectual abilities, academic capacities, professional ethics and civic responsibility to prepare a scientific, technical, professional and civic cadre of the highest order.
At the time, Vela's thinking went against the grain of the "hands-on" education that was in vogue then. It also emphasized the unity of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics as an integral body knowledge that bridged the physical world with the mental world. This emphasis contrasted with the stovepiping of courses in science, technology, engineering and math in traditional education.
Moreover, STEM as originally conceived by Vela constituted a proposition which argued that the most important factors in closing the educational attainment gap are 1) overcoming gaps in the access to knowledge and 2) creating a positive learning and educational environment. Both are more determinant than the socio-economic condition of a student or the access to technological gadgets.
THE TERM STEM
Vela came up with the term STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) for the following reasons:
- STEM as a source from which everything originates.
- STEM as stem cells that are the fundamental make up of life and can be used to repair life itself.
- STEM as the axis, the main body or trunk of a plant or shrub from which beauty and food for humans grow.
- STEM because to solve the most pressing needs of humankind requires science, technology, engineering and math with a multidisciplinary approach and interdisciplinary team work.
- STEM because at the boundary of science, technology, engineering and math is where some of the most complex questions in knowledge lie.
- STEM symbolize the unity of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics and its importance in the wellbeing of humanity. It is the bridge between the mental and the physical worlds.
THE STEM WATERFALL PARADIGM
Another important aspect of STEM is its cascade approach to teaching and learning as exemplified in CAHSEE’s STEM Waterfall Paradigm, where each new intellectual skill is integrated with the previously acquired abilities. For example, visualization leads into physical modeling, which in turn feeds back into visualization. Similarly, visualization leads into pattern recognitions, which in turn, with modeling, feeds back into intuition, and so on.
The STEM paradigm as conceived by Charles Vela and implemented at CAHSEE’s STEM Institute focused on creating intellectual abilities and capacities that allowed its students to become successful professionals, to assume the pinnacle in the STEM universe, whether in the solution of critical and complex problems, innovation, basic research, management or STEM policy; that they serve as strategic human capital to overcome the challenges facing the world and the stagnation that persists in certain communities and countries; So that they become notable people in society and defenders of human dignity. Read: "Este hombre quiere fabricar nuestros líderes del futuro" (This man wants to create our leaders of the future and "La Riqueza Fundamental-del Ser Humano es el Celebro" (The Fundamental Wealth of Human Beings is the Brain).
Intellectual Abilities
- Visualization of complex structures
- Conceptualization of abstract phenomena and thought experiments
- Pattern recognition in mathematics, science and in different types of phenomena such as economics and sociology·
- Intuition in human endeavor, mainly in mathematics, physics and engineering. The principal quality in a military general in the art of war since the times of Alexander the Great
- Mathematical and scientific abstraction
- Synthesis as the fundamental quality of abstraction for the understanding natural and human phenomena, and capture and creation of knowledge
Academic Capabilities
- Syntax and mathematical grammar
- Modeling of natural and economic phenomena
- Analysis as a fundamental method for the segregation and organization of data and comprehension of phenomena
Academic Discipline
- Subject matter mastery
- Independent learning
Professional Conduct
- Commitment to excellence
- Competitiveness
- Accurate and clear communication skills
- Teamwork and team leadership
- Risks taking
- Strategic and tactical thinking
- Planning, execution, monitoring, control and evaluation
Civic Responsibility
- Conduct in accordance with the Honor Code
- Solidarity with others and enjoyment of success of others
- Commitment to one’s country and humanity
College students and advance high school students were assigned to the Young Educators Program (YEP) or the Young Engineer and Scientist Program (YESP).
The YEP and YESP Fellowships were geared towards further developing the fellow's academic, leadership, civic, engineering and scientific practice, and presentation skills of the participants.
The goal was to prepare the fellows to excel in their college education and professional careers while being exemplary civic leaders committed to social justice.
In the STEM paradigm, graduate students and upper division undergraduates worked with lower division undergraduate and in some cases advance high school students to teach college level classes to elementary, junior and high school students participating in the STEM Institute. As such, YEP Fellows served as a role model to the STEM Institute students and prepare them to enter and succeed in college. Fellows learned how to convey knowledge and teach college level classes in a demanding, yet friendly, environment.
Others were sent to government agencies and government labs to do research in real engineering and scientific problems or to work in developing technical and scientific policies through the Young Engineer and Scientist Program (YESP).
The main objective of YESP was to provide minds-on/hands-on real-world experience in each student's field of interest. This experience was designed to give the student exposure to scientific research and engineering and thus catapult the fellows onto a fast track of success in science or engineering.
These two components (YEP and YESP) of the STEM parading are what Vela termed:
- Technical and scientific praxis and ingenuity
- Subject mastery and leadership
- Science and technical policy
This overall framework is what Vela called The STEM paradigm
PLANNING THE STEM INSTITUTE
Based on this paradigm, Vela went on to develop subject matter content and teaching strategies with a focus on identifying and capturing the essence of a problem, which Vela deemed to be more important than learning topics and following curricula mechanically. Thus, the primary STEM learning strategy became content-based and not curriculum- based. If the students and the instructor wanted, they were at liberty of skipping topics to deepen their knowledge in any particular subject matter.
Teaching was to be done by college students who would be competitively selected from colleges and universities across the nation. Vela went on to develop a series of lectures, including “On Knowledge”, “On Leadership”, “On Teaching”, on understating the STEM Paradigm, etc. to prepared these students to impart the subjects covering the aforementioned intellectual qualities and academic capacities: visualization, intuition, pattern recognition, modeling, conceptualization, abstraction, synthesis, command of mathematics; teaching strategies; classroom management; homework and testing as a teaching, instruction and student assessment tool. Great emphasis was placed on social and civic responsibility. These college students were part of CAHSEE's Young Educators Program (YEP).
COMPONENTS OF THE YEP and YESP
Component One
YEP and YESP Fellows traveled to Washington, DC to participate in a series of seminars an assignments:
- Seminars on Teaching (YEP Program)
- Learning and teaching methodologies
- Learning and teaching techniques
- Preparing and delivering a class
- Preparing exams, quizzes, tests, and homework
- Correcting exams and grading
- Dealing with young students
- Creating a positive learning environment
- Seminars on Leadership included (YEP and YESP)
- Strategic thinking, planning and practice including execution, follow up, control, and rectification.
- Leadership practice and qualities, and leadership skills (style and methods of leadership)
- Theory of knowledge: The appropriation of reality; differentiating its essence from its appearance
- Síntesis as the highest form of abstraction and creating knowledge, and analysis as a method for differentiating and understanding phenomena.
- The educational system (merits and flaws, and required changes)
- Theory, history and practice of political, economic, military and intellectual power
- Economic systems
- Social and civic responsibility
- Team building and team participation
- Constructive criticism
- Evaluation
- Exposure to National Decision Makers (YEP and YESP)
- Cabinet-level Secretaries
- Members of Congress
- The White House
- Prominent academics and intellectuals (e.g. National Academy of Sciences, NASA, NSF)
- Latino leaders and entrepreneurs
- Top leaders in technology such as Robert Kahn who, along with Vint Cerf, created the Internet.
- Visits and lectures at national museums and exposure to Washington, DC cultural life. (YEP and YESP).
Often the STEM Institute students participated in the exposure to national decision makers.
Component Two
YEP Fellows taught a five-week college-level course to talented primarily Latino and African American students participating in The STEM Institute at any of the participating universities.
YEP Fellows were assigned as instructors or teaching assistants. Both worked as a team and were responsible for delivery of course material and for creating a positive learning environment for the students. This part of the program was extremely challenging because Fellows were responsible for mastering a subject in order to teach it in a demanding environment composed of very smart Latino and African American children. Fellows were required to submit weekly reports.
YEPs would meet weekly to guarantee that the material being taught was consistent with the STEM Paradigm.
YESP Fellows were assigned to national labs or government agencies.
Component Three
Fellows, spent one week preparing a report on the YEP Fellowship experience and the STEM Institute. These were comprehensive analytical reports.
YESP Fellows prepared a report on their engineering, research or policy experience.
The report was modeled as a PhD dissertation.
The report guidelines were crafted to enhance the analytical and writing skills of the Fellows.
THE STEM INSTITUTE
In 1992, Vela launched, at The Catholic University of America, the STEM Institute with the subject matter content and teaching strategies that he had developed into the STEM Waterfall Paradigm. Under The Center for the Advancement of Hispanics in Science and Engineering Education (CAHSEE), with offices at the George Washington University, he opened STEM Institutes across the country including at:
George Washington University
City College of New York (see CCNY STEM INSTITUTE)
University of Illinois at Chicago
Merrimack College, Boston
Santa Clara University
University of El Salvador (see Programa Jóvenes Talento)
California Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (see MIT News and STEM Program Report).
All courses were taught at the college level, including those for young students in the 4th grade. Initially, the program began with 7th graders, but soon the age limit was gradually decreased until the STEM Institute started accepting students in the fourth grade. However, the academic rigor was not lowered but in fact increased. The basic concept is that a child is more amenable to learn complexities at an early age. The idea stems from the fact that a child learns to speak, the most complex endeavor a person will learn in life, much earlier than to tie his/her shoes. This is what gave way to the concept of “minds on” first, as opposed to “hands-on”. Instead, "hands-on" becomes a byproduct of "minds on."
Fourth graders began with an introduction to topology (designed by Vela with an MIT graduate YEP), a college upper division mathematics course; and with descriptive geometry (designed by Vela with a Berkeley undergraduate YEP), a college sophomore level engineering course. Following the Caltech practice, calculus classes where taught starting with integration, and using the Apostol textbook (considered the most difficult calculus book), and not with the traditional differential calculus. The content material that was taught was redesigned every year based on the principle of continued excellence.
Apart from the academic education, every week the STEM students would receive lectures on civic and social responsibility, and their commitment to excellence as future trailblazers of America.
Team work was emphasized in learning and problem solving. Also the most advanced students were paired to lagging students with the responsibility that an the end of the program both were as skilled. This was called the Buddy System. Each student had a buddy.
In the first two years, CAHSEE and the STEM Institute were institutionally sponsored by the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) but funding was elusive. During the first year, 1992, the program was funded by Tony Torres, a political appointee of President Bush, and Charles Vela. Then, the Washington Post published an editorial lauding the STEM program, and in 1993, NASA provided the STEM Institute its first grant. Based on the 1993 outcomes, NASA published an article on CAHSEE and the STEM Institute, featuring one of the student participants: From the Mind of Mendoza.
The primary goal of The STEM Institute was to increase Latino, African American and women’s participation at the higher echelons of technical and scientist enterprises, academia and government and in the acquisition of advanced STEM degrees, primarily PhDs. As a result, the STEM Institute enrolled equal percentages of male and female students.
Over 70 % of CAHSEE’s alumni received advanced degrees and many obtained PhDs, from some of the most prominent universities in the US. Today, many hold positions of technical leadership in corporate America while others are successful faculty at US universities.
RECOGNITION OF STEM AS AN EDUCATIONAL PARADIGM
In 1998, the White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans recognized the STEM Institute in “What Works for Latino Youth” (see page 14). In 1999, the STEM Institute was showcased at a meeting with former first Lady Hillary Clinton.
In 2001, the concept and term STEM was adopted and promoted by Rita Coldwell, then director of National Science Foundation, as a sine qua non requirement to maintain US technical and scientific leadership. By this time, STEM had already been accepted by many in academia. STEM was eventually adopted by all of US government and the private sector as a strategy for global competitiveness.
Subsequently, in the report of a two year study on best practices in STEM education, which was presented to US Congress on April 29, 2004, a Blue Ribbon Panel “Building Engineering and Science Talent ” (BEST), composed of members of the Business Round Table, Congress and the National Science Foundation, cited the STEM Institute exclusively for its promising practices in increasing the admission of students into undergraduate math, science and engineering studies, and for the superior college completion rates of participants. See Table 2-3 on page 20, and pages 23 and 42 of the report.
In 2010, pursuant to the requirements of Section 101 of the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act (42 U.S.C. §6621), the US Government established The Committee on STEM Education to review science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education programs, investments and activities by Federal agencies.
A Subcommittee on Federal Coordination in STEM Education was also established and tasked with formulating and implementing a five-year strategic plan on STEM based on a "vision for a future where all Americans have lifelong access to high-quality STEM education and the United States will be the global leader in STEM literacy, innovation, and employment."
Recently, the US House of Representatives passed the Rural STEM Education Act, which directs the National Science Foundation (NSF) to support research regarding STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, including computer science) education in rural schools. (Refer to H.R.4979). The bill has been referred to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
This bill calls for the NSF to award grants to higher education institutions and nonprofit organizations for (1) research and development to advance innovative approaches for high-quality STEM teaching in rural schools, (2) research and development to identify the barriers rural students face in accessing high-quality STEM education, (3) development of innovative solutions to improve the participation and advancement of rural students in Pre-K through 12 grade STEM studies, and (4) research on online STEM education opportunities for rural communities.
Increasingly, in the US and beyond, Vela's concept of STEM is transforming education around the world. It is a revolution in education adapted by developed economies such as the US, Canada, Great Britain, Australia; developing economies such as China, India, Mexico and Brazil; and others such Sri Lanka and those in the African continent.
TESTIMONIES
Vela remembers one of his students telling him after he received his engineering degree from Rutgers, where he also received his PhD: “I am going to make more money in one year than my father made during his whole life.” Another of CAHSEE’s PhDs from The University of Arizona went on to become the lead research engineer in quantum computing at IBM Research – Almaden. Yet another would be the first student to be offered more than one million dollars in scholarships to attend MIT.
In the words of Maria Mayorga, PhD, University of California at Berkeley:
"I first met Charles when I joined the STEM Institute in 1993, this was the summer before my freshman year in high school. This year the institute met on the campus of the Catholic University in Washington DC. The program was unique and special, I’d dare say revolutionary for its time.
This was not a remedial program or even one to prepare us to get ahead in our school work, this was a program in which college level math, science and engineering courses were taught to middle and high school students by current college students on a college campus. We learned from college textbooks and were mentored by people who looked like us and were succeeding in STEM fields. I had always been a talented student, but as a first-generation immigrant, before this experience my highest aspiration was to be a school teacher.
After the first summer I knew I wanted to be an engineer, and I knew I would succeed. I came back and attended three summers at the STEM Institute (years 2 & 3 were on the George Washington University (GWU) campus). During this time I developed technical abilities, academic capacity, academic discipline, and most importantly, confidence. I remember being so excited that I had mastered concepts like logic, C programming, vector math, and statistics, subjects that students in my school had not even heard of! I knew that I was ready for college. Furthermore, through the years I met many Latino college students (the YEP students) who taught the classes with whom I discussed different majors and career paths.
Another component of the summer program were the field trips, we were able to meet with members of Congress, NASA engineers, NSF directors and many other role models. These events were always so humbling and inspiring, they made me want to be successful, not only for myself but also to be able to one day contribute to society."