<p>I don’t know about more and harder AP courses in high school being the solution. My daughter’s favorite subject is Biology, but she hated AP Biology. She had a great teacher, she got an A in the course, a 5 on the test, and an 800 on the SATII; but the reduction of biology to an endless grind of memorization meant that the enjoyment and intellectual satisfaction of the subject was eliminated entirely. In the article in the NYT, the author attributes a good deal of the attrition of STEM students not to the difficulty of the work, but to the disconnect between the work and the subject’s goals of creating, understanding, helping, changing. It’s not a question of the work being hard, or students wanting to have fun: they want to feel involved in their own subject, to problem-solve, to have short-term accomplishments that are not just grades. A greater emphasis on more and harder grind early on ignores that desire.</p>
<p>While it’s easy to point fingers at 9-12, I think it misses the point on what causes the ‘math-science death march’ which has been going on like, forever. The fact is that science faculty purposely weed out kids. They want them OUT of class and out of the discipline. (A perfect example is posted on this thread by a faculty member of a STEM field.) </p>
<p>Back in the dark ages, before AP and all the new found ‘humility and hard work’, STEM fields weeded out kids; this ain’t a new construct. It is part of the pedagogical DNA of science faculty members. (Ask any Bio/Chem professor that you know and listen closely for an answer on why they HAVE to be much more harsh graders than the other liberal arts.) </p>
<p>It is only natural, that students will flock to easier majors, whose faculty are happy to have them. (Some students HAVE to gravitate to an easier major to maintain their gpa for scholarships; they may love, love science, but a 2.0 won’t do for free money. Or they may have to change to an easier major bcos they work to pay the bills.) So-called ‘Gentleperson’s B’s’ are readily available in the humanitities for a modicum of work. In contrast, busting your butt in STEM can easily result in a C. Students are stupid. Just like water that flows downhill, students can and will gravitate towards easier majors, and towards faculty that appear to want them.</p>
<p>Even if everyone in a Frosh Gen Chem class has taken AP Chem and everyone scored a 5 (and learned ‘humility and hard work’), the Prof will still curve the course and purposely weed out the bottom half of the class. It is in the scientific DNA of the academics. The question is ‘Why’?</p>
<p>My oldest majored in biology at arguably one of the most rigorous colleges in the country.
Her high school didn’t offer any AP classes, which is obviously not necessary for preparation.
However, they did teach good scientific practices & had strong math curriculum.</p>
<p>Her sister attended high school where she took AP courses but the math curriculum was very poor- as a result she is having to double back and relearn info in order to continue in her science major.
I have confidence she will prevail, but am angry that the choices of the district have put up speed bumps in the way of students wanting further education.</p>
<p>I think high school preparation absolutely is essential to the science major, and when it’s lacking, sets people back from the beginning making it tough to catch up. However, in my daughter’s case, the time spent in the lab as an intern ultimately made her turn away from science. She realized that working in a windowless, relatively dark room, and seeing the same two people everyday just wasn’t going to cut it. I understand that all labs are not equal, but in her case, the graduate student she worked for was rather burned out, and that meant that my daughter’s work couldn’t proceed because he wasn’t moving his work along. She spent hours on facebook instead of supporting his experiments. Pathetic.</p>
<p>What if the first year STEM courses were made pass-fail? That would give students a low-risk way to see if they like the subject. If a student likes Bio or Chem or whatever but is getting C’s on tests, there would be a year to see if the student could get tutoring and/or put in the extra work to get in the groove of the thing. Caltech and MIT make all of freshman year pass/“fail”, so there’s certainly precedent. </p>
<p>I heard a dean at D1’s school talk about taking her first biology course at Wellesley. She essentially failed her first test. But she liked the subject, and went in to talk to her professor about what she was doing wrong. Got a B on the next test. She ended up with a C in the course, and went on to get a PhD in Biology. D1’s computer science professor told her that he got a C in his first comp sci course as an undergrad. I’m sure there are many, many more examples like this among STEM majors.</p>
<p>I am just getting SO tired of this “weeder course” debate. It is true that there are certain courses in most science disciplines that have a reputation as ‘discriminators’, but I really don’t think that the problem of low STEM disciplines enrollment is primarily due to professors diligently weeding their student gardens. Nor do I point the finger at high schools for improper preparation (although certainly this can be an issue).</p>
<p>It is a simple fact that many STEM disciplines contain courses that involve high orders of abstract thinking, high levels of numeracy, and require high levels of persistence. Many of us simply do not possess those attributes, and as a result do not complete degrees in STEM disciplines. </p>
<p>It is a shame that well-qualified students decide to abandon STEM-discipline majors in college, and there are certainly things that we can do to ameliorate the problem. There are researchers in this field, such as Sheila Tobias (“They’re Not Dumb, They’re Different”) who have demonstrated that there are ways to get at what she calls, “Second Tier” students (smart and dedicated students who are not typically successful in the sciences):</p>
<p>"… science educators have concluded too soon that low-quality K-12 education makes many students ‘unqualified’ for science careers, while unappealing media depictions of science discourage women and minorities from entering the field… college-level science teachers should take responsibility for the high dropout rates in science programs… And the keys to salvaging the ‘second tier’ of students: 1) Engaging teaching practices, 2) Efforts towards recruitment and retention,3) Increased dialogue and demonstrations in class,4) Greater emphasis on independent thinking and context,5) Encouraging cooperation rather than competition among students."</p>
<p>Personally, I think the #3, #4 and #5 are the most important, and you will find that teachers of modern science courses are in fact incorporating these items.</p>
<p>Full Disclosure: I am a Dean of Math and Sciences at a community college</p>
<p>Thanks for posting, Dean.</p>
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<p>What about strong students who matriculate to top schools? Students accepted into Cal-Engineering, for example, have top grades and scores, particularly in science and math, but yet many of them earn Frosh Cs (and worse). And as the article notes, premeds at UCLA, “who typically have the strongest SAT scores and high school science preparation” have 2x the attrition rate of other majors. Similar findings at Cornell, where “students are pushed out by their low grades in their major field.” Note that many of these Frosh matriculate with excellent scores in AP Calc and AP physical sciences (Chem and/or Physics).</p>
<p>Are you suggesting that such top students at top colleges do not ‘possess the attributes’ to succeed in STEM? Or, do we just accept the fact that many students do not belong in STEM fields? </p>
<p>From the article:
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<p>Bingo!</p>
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<p>Number 5 is illogical with the strong curves that science courses purposely present. They only serve to increase competition and decrease cooperation. One never hears stories of gunners in lit courses. :)</p>
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<p>Are these factors important in teaching science in the rest of the world? Is there anything we could learn about science teaching from Asian countries, for example?</p>
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<p>The problem is that the academic credentials of the “strong students” top out because of grade inflation at the high schools and because SAT and AP tests give high scores to students ranging from merely good at the high school level to the real superstars in the subject (this is the same reason that the most selective schools use extracurriculars and other “holistic” criteria so much, since most of their applicants have hit the maximum on grades and test scores).</p>
<p>Note that the SAT explicitly inflated the scores back in the 1990s.</p>
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There were 35,000 plus applicants to Harvard I believe. Do you really contend that ** most** of them got the maximum score possible on all their standardized tests? I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration.</p>
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<p>So its ok to weed “strong students” out of STEM at top schools but its ok if they attend a lower ranked school? </p>
<p>In the article, Professor Chang from UCLA:
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<p>The problem is that access to the next career level, whether it is admission to grad/professional schools (med/law) or job, as well as scholarships, bonuses, etc. are all primarily number driven. While there’s some adjustment for the selectivity of the school, there isn’t really for the difficulty of the difficulty of the major, the program, or grade deflation at schools like Berkeley. So, if you spend 200K and work your butt off, why not have it a little easier and major in another field rather than be in the lower half of a group of smart people? Of course, the more drop out, the more challenging it becomes for the ones that stick with it.</p>
<p>Also, while there is a lot of talk about the need for more STEM majors, the career outlook in the sciences is actually pretty poor, with many grads competing for few jobs, grants, and after multiple postdoc jobs, a permanent position.</p>
<p>Actually, I just came across a study of participants of NSF REUs. In terms of grades, the BOTTOM quartile were students with a GPA of 3.4 or lower (top quartile was 3.9 or higher). Looking at this, the average graduate from many selective institutions (e.g. Berkeley, Harvey Mudd, Princeton) would be in that bottom group. So, it is completely understandable if these students get upset about the grading and throw in the towel. The irony, of course, is that while much of scientific progress depends on collaboration, the system discourages cooperation among students.</p>
<p>"In China and India and all other developing countries, an Engineering degree is the passport to success:</p>
<p>-it is not just that. In China and India and most other countries, they actually have enough backgound after graduating from HS, all kids do to pursue Engineering. They are prepared to go to engineering or any major their heart desires. Not such a case here, Nope, one year of physics will not do the trick even in the best private schools, simply is not enough time to cover it as deeply as needed.</p>
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<p>Probably most of them got close enough to maximum (3.9+ UW GPA with almost all available honors and AP courses, 700+ on every SAT section) that the usual academic criteria in the US becomes much less useful to distinguish between them.</p>
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<p>There are confounding effects here:</p>
<ol>
<li> It is harder to change majors at CSUs, even to H/SS majors.</li>
<li> STEM majors are not that popular to begin with at most CSUs (other than the Polys and a few others) – the students have probably self-weeded before entering.</li>
<li> CSU students may not be as deterred from majoring in something that they got a B or even a C grade in as Berkeley students who are used to (from high school) getting A grades in everything.</li>
</ol>
<p>They accept vey low percentage of valedictorians (I believe about 17% at Princeton, not sure about Harvard), itdoes not sound like exaggeration.</p>
<p>I like the idea of a challenge, but if Obama wants me to major in STEM, he’s going to have to give me some incentive…</p>
<p>marysidney,
hate to dissapoint you further, but Bio is memorization, in HS, in UG, in Med. School. There is no math in Bio. You got to love the subject or not, but there is no escape from memorization and that is why Med. School is so hard.</p>
<p>ALF glad to read that someone else doesnt get this “weeder” thing either…at my S2’s university…he will tell you the courses are tough, they expect alot, BUT the professors have no agenda to fail people or weed them out…they are more than available to the student that seeks help, open doors, tutors are available, TA’s are available, …son would say that they are more than helpful! and his university has a med school, dental school etc…so alot of stem type students</p>
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Yes, that’s true, there’s bunching at the top.</p>
<p>But “close to maximum” is not “maximum”. Maxing out (meaning 800 on every test across the board) still puts a student in pretty rarefied air. It’s far more rare than one would think reading this message board. That’s all I’m saying.</p>