On the Australian Technologies Curriculum

Bamn. There we have it. The Australian Technologies Curriculum has been officially approved by the Commonwealth Minister for Education. This Foundation – Year 10 curriculum contains two subjects: a) Design and Technologies and b) Digital Technologies. It’s fair to say that it is the second subject that has most piqued the tech industries’ interest due to the inclusion of coding/programming (visual programming in year 5-6 and general coding languages in years 7-8).

The Minister’s announcement also touches on the previously announced $12million STEM fund that will go to:

• the development of innovative mathematics curriculum resources ($7.4m) – “The Mathematics by Inquiry project will produce a suite of innovative, high quality mathematics teaching and learning resources” (LINK)
• supporting the introduction of computer coding across different year levels ($3.5m) -not too many details on this one – sounds like it will be an online resources collection.
• establishing a P-TECH-style school pilot site ($500,000) – an industry/govt collaboration based on the IBM/City of New York school. These will be based in Geelong and Ballarat. The program is administered by Skilling Australia Foundation (LINK)
• funding summer schools for STEM students from underrepresented groups. ($?600,000) – Previous press releases mentioned a focus on Indigenous Australia and females in technology, but not too many details since then.

My thoughts:

This is pretty big stuff. It was exactly a year ago that the curriculum review suggested that the introduction of technology subjects would crowd and complicate the Australian curriculum and that coding should be introduced as part of an elective from year 9 onwards. This time last year there was a very real chance that technology in general, and coding in particular, would be integrated as part of other subjects – or, left up to the interests of individual schools/teachers to introduce.

Given the implications of implementing an Australia wide curriculum change – the $12million STEM funding is starting to look a little out of place. At the time it looked like a consolation prize for an education system that was going to miss out on a technology focus. Now that the game has changed – this fund appears a little piece meal – four interesting, but not exactly game changing or scalable initiatives.

For a government aiming to position Australia for the 21st century – the introduction of this curriculum is a good start. The responsibility is now passed to the State Governments to look at the extent to which it will be adopted and the speed/quality of implementation.

On Liberal Arts vs STEM degrees

Following on from the theme of my last post – this morning I read an article titled: “Liberal Arts vs STEM: The Right Degrees, The Wrong Debate” (Sergei Klebnikov, Forbes, 2015).

Everything you need to know about the article is in the title. It lays out a premise that there is a debate between Liberal Arts and STEM degrees, then proceeds with why there is no debate and that the two are highly compatible.

What I found most interesting in this article was that it was based on the premise that liberal arts degrees coming under scrutiny and are perhaps out of favour (if not with students then perhaps with policy makers and leaders). I don’t believe Australia is experiencing this reality. Or, if it is, it is not showing in student enrolment numbers.

The article suggests that in the USA enrolments in STEM degrees are on the up and up. This is a great position to be in. In Australia we have seen a slight reversal of trends in the engineering and science fields but nothing that would compel a journalist to write an article in defence of liberal arts degrees.

The current narrative around STEM is very inclusive. CS+X (computer science plus your passion) is one method of explaining to students that computing is a way to deliver on your passions. STEAM (STEM with Arts in the middle) is another that demonstrates that the two can operate successfully together.

I can imagine nothing greater than liberal arts (and commerce) students powered up with the ability to deliver ideas through technology.

On whether America’s obsession with STEM is dangerous

A couple of weeks ago I was sent Fareed Zakaria’s article “Why America’s obsession with STEM education is dangerous” (March, Washington Post). The article looked like a counter to the endless commentary on the need to increase the technical skills of students. This movement is largely USA driven but also reaches Europe, Australia and a bunch of what I would generalise as ‘Western education systems’.

The gist of the article is that a hardcore drive towards technical skills (i.e. the learn to code movement), at the expense of liberal arts education, would erode the very elements that made the USA a success – creativity, innovation and problem solving. Zakaria points to the USA’s low global rankings in maths and science but, instead of seeing that as an issue, says that it has always been this way and the USA has been successful regardless.

Personally I believe this is a misguided, clickbait-y, point of view. I have never heard anyone say that liberal arts degrees, and diverse interests, are not valuable. The line is always that technology is a tool to deliver your ideas. These ideas come through big thinking, innovation, creativity etc. It’s not that coding advocates want to do away with liberal arts degrees – its more that our students are coming through the elementary school system without even a basic exposure to tools that will benefit them immensely during their lives (and careers).

The article suggests that revised curriculums have a “narrow” STEM focus. I disagree with this as well. The revised curriculum in Australia proposes a strong focus on problem solving and logical thinking. It does this in the form of computational thinking  – and backs it up by exposing students to the programming and coding skills needed to deliver this creative thinking. There is a large gap between our generations comfort with technology and our ability to make things with it. This gap between confidence and competence is what we are working to reduce – hopefully creating a generation of students that are flexible thinkers, capable of finding jobs that deliver on their passions. In the 21st century its the students with the best skills set that will have the greatest chance of making the impact they want to see.

On Malcolm Turnbull and Tech Education

Last month, the Hon. Malcolm Turnbull, Minister for Communications and hero of the tech world, spoke at what looks like a Westpac associated event. The topic: “The Importance of Tech Education in Our Schools” (24 October, 2014).

In most regards the speech was on-point. It addressed:

• The Digital Technologies curriculum review – stating that the review’s intent was to simplify Australia’s curriculum and that coding could emerge through another strand, such as mathematics. This incorporation of coding into the mathematics curriculum was mentioned three times in the speech. Turnbull also mentioned the need to distinguish between the recommendations of Phil Callil, the subject matter expert, and the review as a whole. This was to remind people that Callil determined that key ICT skills taught as part of the digital technologies syllabus, such as coding and computational thinking, should be taught from Foundation to Year 10.
• The role of technology in changing our economy – the need to create new jobs as old jobs disappear and the need for Australia to remain internationally competitive. Particularly if Australia wishes to remain a high cost centre with a strong social support network. He referenced Dr Ian Chubb’s recognition that about half of all US economic growth in the last 50 years came from scientific and technological advances.
• The difference between passively consuming technology and actively making it – quote:

“…Instead of teaching students how to be passive consumers of technology…, our educators should be teaching students how to create, how to code.”

• ICT education participation rates – commencements in tertiary ICT courses have also fallen sharply, with a 53 per cent decline between 2001 and 2011, while completions declined by 58 per cent over the same period. And that while female participation in the workforce is almost 50%, female participation in STEM careers sits at 25%.

Mr Turnbull said that we need to ensure that:

• We are equipping students with the skills for employment in an increasingly competitive globalised economy
• We are improving the pathways for students to study IT from Foundation through to secondary school and onto university
• There is an increase in the percentage of school-aged girls participating in ICT and women employed in the ICT sector
• Teachers are supported to undertake professional learning in key areas of IT competency.

The speech referenced two ideas:

• First, the $500,000 set aside for the Geelong based P-Tech. Modelled on IBM’s work in the US – this P-Tech would increase industry engagement in the school system
• Second, we closely monitor the impact of the UK introducing a Digital Technologies curriculum.

My thoughts:

Most of the speech’s content is exactly what people are looking for. Recognition that technology will play an increasingly important role in our future, that jobs are changing and the economy needs to change with it. One thing that stood out was the constant referencing of mathematics as the solution to embedding logic and computational thinking in the K-6 curriculum. Not sure if everyone will agree that’s the solution… but if it is going to live anywhere under the current structure that’s not a terrible place. It was interesting to see Turnbull specifically name-check the Canberra based Australian Mathematics Trust (see quote below).

The speech was a little light on solutions. The current initiatives put forward by the Commonwealth Government include: a) review the curriculum, b) $3.5 million to embed ‘coding across the curriculum’ and c) the P-Tech. It’s tough to see how these initiatives will have the desired effect – especially given the emphasis put on the incredible pace that technology is influencing the world.

Full quote on Australian Mathematics Trust:

Teaching students how to code – to use computers to create rather than just consume – from Foundation through to Year 8 could be appropriately incorporated into the mathematics syllabus, for example.

A leader in this area is the Australian Mathematics Trust based in Canberra. I commend you to the work they are doing in informatics, a mathematics discipline, where students learn the basic algorithms, data structures and computational techniques that underlie information and communication, and demonstrate their learning through computer programming tasks.

On why we must inspire children to study technology

As part of their ongoing series on innovation, General Electric, together with The Economist Group, interviewed Singapore based technologist/educator Ayesha Khanna for her thoughts on why we must inspire children to study technology. Aysha believes that if Australia does not invest in STEM subjects then it will lose its competitive edge. This is based on the idea that future industries are being transformed and disrupted by technology and students will need both the technical skills and the creative inspiration to remain at the core of these changes.

Main points are:

• Silo-ed education: we currently teach education in silos – each subject is taught in isolation when, in the real world, there is massive crossover. The interview references examples of how people need design skills and basic engineering to create prototypes, then research skills to test products etc. This concept was raised recently as part of the Commonwealth Government review into the curriculum – how could we ensure teachers are skilled in their ability to use (for example) robotics to teach applied maths or science as a means to teach art (colour matching).
• Creativity: Aysha also raises the oft discussed concept of STEAM – adding Arts to the standard Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics grouping. The Arts element ensures that students don’t disappear down a technical rabbit hole. That they remain creative, open, inquisitive, exploratory – that the technical concepts they are developing are applied to real life situations. This is where the entrepreneurship element of digital literacy lives.

How to address the issue:

• Expose children to real life examples: whether its through careers fairs, office tours or mini-internships – students need to see a ‘day in the life’ of real careers. This helps ground the diversity and complexity of roles available to them through STEM (STEAM?) education fields.
• Ensure active use of technology: Aysha touches on the idea of active vs passive use of technology – something I have previously referred to as ‘making’ vs ‘using’ tech. Her thoughts are that technology is a wonderful thing as long as students are ‘active’ users – instead of using iPads for games/movies etc – load them full of apps that teach coding, drawing or are used for Khan Academy lessons.
• Gender imbalances: gender in STEM was also referenced. That there is still the latent belief that boys are more suited to these careers than girls. This seems to be a generational belief that is being passed down to young girls by their parents. There is no evidence to suggest that girls are any less competent than boys at what they do. Aysha’s recommendation is that parents/teachers just need to let go – allow girls to find their own ways of making technology instead of trying to enforce an history approach (the reference here is to allow girls to put tiaras on robots if they wish – I’m hesitant to mention it as that alone sounds pretty gendered to me).

This was a short article – but I thought it was worth publishing because a) it showed that companies like General Electric see STEM education as essential for Australia’s future, b) it added the concept of creativity to the standard discussion on STEM and c) it rephrased the ‘making’ vs ‘using’ discussion on technology as ‘active’ and ‘passive’.

On the Chief Scientist’s STEM position paper (September 2014)

The Office of the Chief Scientist has just released recommendations for how to improve uptake and engagement with Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics disciplines in Australia (available here). The paper starts with some background statistics that say that while Australia is not doing terribly, we’re not going that well either. I reckon the Chief Scientist is giving us a B-, or an “Australia shows dedication in class but needs to show rapid improvement to succeed in the future”.

Background STEM statistics:

• 75% of the fastest growing occupations now require STEM skills
• Australia is now the only country in the OECD not to have a current national strategy that bears on science and/or technology and/or innovation
• In 2003 only five countries outperformed Australia in school based mathematical literacy tests, by 2012 Australia was outperformed by 12 countries
• Around 40% of of Year 7-10 mathematics classes are taught without a qualified mathematics teacher
• Just 39% of Australians surveyed recently thought that the benefits of science outweighed the risks

The paper outlines four Australian focus areas i) global competitiveness, ii) Education and Training, iii) Research and iv) international engagement. The area I find most immediately interesting is education and training.

 

Education and Training Objectives and Recommendations:

Secure Pipeline of Talent: recognition of the benefits that a STEM education brings to the community and to the individual.

Recommendations: Maintain the pipeline of STEM graduates and increase the recognition of STEM education and careers through i) mechanisms to encourage student uptake of STEM courses, ii) career advice for students that explains the value of study in STEM disciplines and future career pathways and iii) active participation from employers in positioning Australian STEM to be a key to future prosperity.

Inspirational Teaching: strong STEM teaching at all levels, supported by high quality and relevant teacher training and subject-specific professional development. Increased number of subject-qualified STEM teachers in Australian schools.

Recommendations: lift the number of qualified STEM teachers by i) increasing the attractiveness of the career (through promotion of STEM teaching as a career, remuneration and increased support), ii) ensuring pre-service training for teachers reflects demand for STEM teachers and iii) creating incentives for high achieving STEM students to enrol in teacher training.

Inspired Learning: placing STEM alongside numeracy and languages as a core education goal for all students. Flexible sequences of study that allow students to master both STEM and non-STEM disciplines together. Finally, lifting STEM participation rates at senior secondary and post-secondary levels.

Recommendations: develop science literacy in schools by i) ensuring every primary school has at least one teacher with specialist STEM skills, ii) mandating study of scientific method, scientific philosophy and the history of scientific discovery, and iii) helping schools teach STEM as it is practised and link classroom topics to the ‘real-world’.

Skilled Workforce: the goal is to have a high level of STEM literacy, including specialised skill sets, across the workforce. This includes high levels of participation from all Australians including women, Indigenous students and students from disadvantaged and marginalised backgrounds. Consideration of the demand side of the Australian workforce.

Recommendations: ensure that the skills of STEM graduates are aligned with workforce needs through i) fostering partnership between educators, training providers and employers, ii) using these partnerships to identify the required STEM capabilities, iii) identifying the mutual responsibility of industry and government in addressing supply and demand gaps, iv) commencing a review to ensure that STEM students are equipped to work across all sectors of the economy and v) working with educators to identify how required skills can be built into school and post-secondary courses. This section also includes notes on Work-Integrated-Learning (internships) and targeted support to increase participation of women and marginalised students (including Indigenous students).

Engaged Community: widely accessible opportunities for all Australians to explore, participate in and celebrate STEM.

Recommendations: facilitate community engagement through i) initiatives that increase public interest and involvement in STEM on a national scale, ii) new and expanded community science groups and citizen science projects, iii) promoting parental engagement to nurture children’s creativity while fostering an interest and involvement in STEM activities and subjects…. develop an online portal that profiles new discoveries, current projects and career advice.

Additional points: A couple of other points include the need for better information on the development and placement of STEM graduate into the workforce and the projected demand for STEM skilled employees. The paper recognises there is a shortage of skilled STEM teachers and the low levels of STEM participation amongst Australian students (primary through to tertiary). This section also mentions the Australian Industry Group and the Business Council of Australia’s recognition that Industry has a role to play in improving engagement with teachers and education.

My thoughts:

Like all government papers, I curious about the implementation. This position paper argues that case for cross departmental cooperation which can make things complicated as there is no central administrator for the strategy. I’m also keen to hear about the resourcing (financial and workforce) and the delivery timelines that back this up. Another issue with STEM programs is that in science, technology, engineering and mathematics they include four separate but ultimately linked specialisations. They are separate because each has its own champions and industry associations. They are linked because they all rely on the same skills sets and way of thinking. The paper deliberately avoids championing any one area (although at times it defaults to the use of ‘science’ as a catchall term). These four areas can also be difficult to measure with global rankings only tackling numeracy and literacy.

The paper’s strong emphasis on public research, the need for companies to engage in collaborative research and the need for Australia to remain globally competitive are also at odds with the recent cutbacks in public sector research (notably CSIRO). The paper does however emphasise that future research projects should be in areas of Australian strategic interest so maybe new projects will open up under that front.

On Australia’s young ICT skills gap

The number of Australian ICT professionals under the age of 30 has declined 66% in the last three years – according to a recent Greythorn Recruitment survey (ZDNet). Two reasons are given:

• Less graduates were coming through the education system (a drop of 36% in university enrolments since the peak in 2001)
• More young workers (up to 66%) were considering working overseas

(source: Greythorn quoted in ZDNet, 2014)

Previous STEM crisis articles, particularly the ‘STEM Crisis is a Myth‘ article from Robert Cherette, have commented on the boom/bust nature of ICT aspirations – that roughly every 10-15 years the tech sector experiences rapid growth and then collapses leaving a pile of faded dreams and jaded employees. In Australia our boom was 2001 – that was the height of university enrolments in tech degrees. The above charts capture this shift in demographics: anyone starting their degree in 2001 (aged roughly 17 or 18) would now be 30 or 31. By 2008 enrolments had dropped to 50% of the 2001 peak – this gives us a low replacement rate as evidenced above.

The Commonwealth’s Department of Education recently reported that “employers have little difficulty recruiting workers that meet who meet their skill level expectations” (Skills Shortage Australia, 2014). This may be the case in late 2013, early 2014 but I wonder what it will be like in five years time. One of the findings of last year’s AWPA report was that while there are currently enough ICT workers in Australia, younger generations are having trouble developing enough experience to be considered for local employment.

On Computational Thinking

Article: Computational Thinking – What and Why? (Jeannette M. Wing, Carnegie Mellon University, 2011)

Last week I reviewed three articles on the ‘myth of the STEM crisis’. The articles suggested that there are now more STEM workers than ever before and that the current focus on increasing STEM graduates was unwarranted. However, one thing they did agree on was that increased computational thinking among school students is a good thing that would aid the students in whatever career path they chose.

“Computational thinking is used in the design and analysis of problems and their solutions. It is not just or all about computer science. The education benefits of being able to think computationally  – starting with abstraction, the process of defining problems – enhance and reinforce intellectual skills, and thus can be transferred to any domain.”

“Computational thinking overlaps with logical thinking and systems thinking. It includes algorithmic thinking and parallel thinking which in turn engage other kinds of thought processes, such as compositional reasoning, pattern matching, procedural thinking and recursive thinking.”

Educators like computational thinking because it is a foundation logic skill. It sits well with students of all ages and those that have a talent in this area can easy proceed to other forms of computer science. Those that don’t can enjoy the problem solving and logic aspects of computational thinking challenges. I consider it as pre-programming – the type of activity you can introduce to any student, regardless of their competency, and have them succeed.

The reason all three ‘anti STEM crisis’ articles focused on computational thinking, as opposed to coding, is that the basic logic it teaches can help people in any profession. Lawyers, doctors, accountants, marketing, sales, operations managers are all careers that respond positively to increased computational thinking. This is because it is a life skill, not a coding skill, that helps people break down complex problems into manageable pieces.

Google Chief Warns of Skills Shortage

Maile Carnegie, managing director of Google Australia was quoted in today’s Australian:

… (Maile) Carnegie, (managing director of Google Australia), is addressing one of her chief concerns about Australia’s future.

Why, she asks, have 52 per cent of all graduates emerging from Singapore universities studied STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) and computer science courses, compared to just 16 per cent from Australian universities?

“We’re going backwards,” Carnegie warns. “The number of students with a computer science background in Australia has actually declined by 30 per cent since 2001.

“The long-term challenge for Australia is how do we, as a minimum, keep pace with the global revolution that is happening? But the more immediate challenge is how to make sure we don’t slip further behind.”

On this first anniversary of her appointment to (arguably) Australia’s coolest job, Carnegie has two key messages.

The first is that if primary and secondary school kids haven’t learned to love science in the formative years, it’s too late to expect Australian universities to turn out world-challenging science and technology talents…

Her second core message is that if Australians think we have been changed unrecognisably over the past 15 years by the digital technology revolution, we ain’t seen nothing yet.

The broader context for the article is the launch of the Australian element of  Google’s Impact Challenge – an initiative to financially support (up to $500,000) ideas that address social concerns.  The main point I pull from this quote is the word ‘formative’. That we need to introduce these skills at a young age.

The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage – part 3

Article: The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage (Michael S Teitelbaum, The Atlantic, March 2014)

Michael Teitelbaum, and his book Falling Behind?: Boom, Bust, and the Global Race for Scientific Talent (pub March 2014), is the genesis of a number of recent articles questioning the ongoing race to increase the number of STEM graduates in the USA (and most countries in the world).

Teitelbaum believes these cries have ‘misallocated public and private resources by periodically expanding higher education in science and engineering beyond levels for which there were attractive carer opportunities’. His research claims we have been through five 10-15 year alarm/boom/bust cycles to date – the first three related to the Cold War need to better the Eastern Bloc, the last two related to globalisation and the rise of India/China. It is possible we would have hit a sixth cycle around 2007 but the global recession disrupted that.

This is the third article I have reviewed on this matter and the argument is becoming very familiar (ironic given this article starts out reminding us that STEM crisis alarmists are operating in an echo chamber). It goes some like like: a) if skills are in high demand then salaries would increase, b) there are currently 100-200% more students graduating in STEM majors than there are jobs, c) IT unemployment sits around 11.7% and d) amongst college educated information technology workers under 30, temporary workers from abroad comprise the large majority.

This line of thinking suggests that shortages are related to particular geographies (such as Silicon Valley or major regional hubs) or niche skills sets (such as social media, security, big data etc). Teitelbaum reminds us that college graduates employed in science and engineering occupations actually comprise only a small fraction of the national workforce (I think its about 5-6% in IT). The article points out that IT careers are unstable, have slow-growing wages and there is a high risk of jobs moving offshore. Doesn’t sound that rosy does it?

One thing that the articles do agree on is that the average performance of American K-12 students is fairly ordinary in international STEM testing. This article then counters that by saying the US is measuring a large volume of both very high and very low students so there is still sufficient numbers of students being produced (approx 33% of the world’s leading scientists come from the US). Tietelbaum recognises that

“science and engineering occupations are at the leading edge of economic competitiveness in an increasingly globalised world, and science and entering workforces of sufficient size and quality are essential for any 21st century economy to prosper.”

His main gripe is that there is no data to back up claims of a nationwide crisis in STEM and that this crisis truism is misallocating public funding and attention.

 

My thoughts:

At this stage I believe I am reading variations on the same article. Despite this I am still looking for answers on why large numbers of mid career IT workers are unemployed. Also, if economic data on graduate unemployment is demonstrating there is no STEM crisis then perhaps its time to turn out attention to STEM related K-12 performance. In short – I see true value in broadening students understanding of computational thinking, programming, logic and other STEM related fields at a young age however I do not expect this to translate directly into the number of Australian’s employed in STEM fields (as defined by government statistics). I’m still operating on the belief that we need to prepare a future generation for jobs that don’t exist yet – and that giving them a broad based education is the best way to do this.