BEING HUMAN WITH STEM, STREAM
STEM, a new term coined this century, means Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. When I was schooling in the 1970s, it was called science stream, arts stream or commerce. Then, we had vocational subjects in schools far from town centres.
Being chosen to enter the science stream was a novelty and we felt proud carrying thick Physics books around to show people that we were science stream students.
We had to look for frogs and buy kits to dissect white mice. Everybody had fun performing the mini operation at the laboratory.
For Biology class, we went into the jungle to observe ferns. I still remember the fern named Selaginella.
We had Mathematics and Additional Mathematics too. Mathematics was simple compared with Additional Mathematics, which always carried a red mark in my report card.
It was very difficult to understand, what more to score. Anyway, we enjoyed our school life and all of us secured good jobs.
Today, the curricula focuses on linguistic, mathematical and technological literacy for jobs in the future.
Students make interdisciplinary connections. They develop global citizenship values, including empathy and good character traits. As business magnate Robert Kuok said: “I do not look for MBA or PhD, I look for attitudes.”
Students must have problemsolving, critical thinking, computational thinking, project management and creativity skills.
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs said:” “Everyone should know how to program a computer because it teaches you how to think.”
Technical and Vocational Education and Training is another solution for it.
STEM should start from preschool to primary and secondary schools, as stated in the Malaysian Education Blueprint (2013-2015), right through to tertiary education.
At preschools, nurture and inspire interest; primary schools, make connections or build foundations; secondary schools, develop STEM skills; and tertiary education institutes, improve STEM skills.
Computational thinking skills should be integrated into the primary and secondary syllabus.
For primary and secondary school students from Year 6 to Form 1 (ages 12 to 13), Scratch ,a free programming language, has been introduced.
In Form 4 (where students are 16), they are introduced to Windows Operating System, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Visual Basic, HTML, Java, and JavaScript. They are encouraged to develop multimedia applications.
Learning should be fun and less exam-oriented at this stage.
To advance STEM at the university level, for example, the School of Chemistry at Universiti Sains Malaysia, has developed a micro-scale kit suited for Forms 4 and 5 chemistry experiments. The micro-scale team has been promoting the kits in schools in the northern region.
With this kit, schools could save about 70 per cent of chemicals and time.
The experiments can also be carried out anywhere in the school compound and not necessarily in a lab. The micro-scale kit won the gold medal at the i-IDeA Innovation Competition 2018.
STEAM is the acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics. This is aimed at balancing the Science and Arts subjects.
The Arts skills are based on subjects such as music, literature, arts and craft, sewing, sports, cake-making or culinary arts.
In the United States, it is called liberal education.
For example, an engineering student could sign up for Arts subjects.
It is free and open to undergraduates, according to their interest, as long as it makes up the credit hours in addition to the core subjects and compulsory subjects. I hope Malaysia can emulate this in higher learning institutions.
STREAM means Science Religion Technology Engineering Arts and Mathematics.
Our national philosophy aims “to create individuals who are well-equipped intellectually, spiritually and emotionally”.
“This effort aims to produce knowledgeable, ethical and responsible citizens who can contribute to the harmony and prosperity of the community and nation”.
From here, we have Moral and Religion (Islamic) classes in schools.
At university level, our syllabus must cover these subjects in order to fulfil the accreditation purposes.
The subjects are Bahasa Kebangsaan, English Communication Skills, Learning Skills for University Studies, DecisionMaking Skills, Tamadun Islam and Tamadun Asia, Ethnic Relationship, Comparative Religions, Parenting and Family Issues, and Co-Curriculum.
The end-game is to make the education system respected and relevant.
By implementing STEM, STEAM and STREAM, we want to produce graduates who acquire moral and knowledgeable characteristics that consist of spirituality, leadership skills, national identity, language proficiency, thinking skills and knowledge.
As stated by Harry Lewis, in his book Excellence Without a Soul, what it means with the terms is to be human.
We also want to be on a par with Asean countries in terms of Pisa (Programme for International Student Assessment) and other evaluations.
We have to prepare the future generation for success and not leave it to chance.
Associate professor, Centre for Instructional Technology and Multimedia, Universiti Sains Malaysia