Giving Compass' Take:

• Education Dive argues that schools should go beyond rote memorization in STEM-related classes, explaining that science literature is critical to teaching students how to reason.

• In what ways can K-12 educators incorporate such literature into the curriculum, without losing engagement? How can this help them prepare for higher ed?

• Read more about the inequities in math and science classes in the U.S. 

It is no secret science education in America needs drastic improvement. Only four countries spend more than the United States on primary and secondary education. Teachers in the U.S. devote far more time to their jobs compared to those in many other countries. Yet, 15-year-olds from the United States lag those of other nations in scientific knowledge, per results of the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA).

Nearly half of college students with science and engineering majors eventually shift to other fields or drop out. Critics of the current system of science education have consistently attributed woes to lack of funding and teacher incentives. Abject attitudes toward science may be largely due to lack of critical thinking and increased emphasis on needless memorization.

I had mentored a high school student as he worked on a science fair project. Although he was an exceptional memorizer of facts, he couldn’t understand certain concepts behind his research, which stymied his progress. As he became more exposed to relevant papers in the field, absorption occurred easier, and he finished as one of the top students in the local fair. By force-feeding facts for rote memorization, we are essentially lying to the students, implying that science is meaningful only when passively imbibing information. However, science is absolutely conceptual, and its progress depends on the derivation of novel ideas.

Read the full article about scientific literature in schools by Abhishek Gangrade at Education Dive.