We have a "wicked" problem
HIGHLY CAPABLE AND CREATIVE STUDENTS ARE DISENGAGING FROM STEM SUBJECTS...
...at a time when our society and our economy desperately needs more engineers, technical entrepreneurs, scientists and digital innovators, Australian kids are not choosing STEM
The Challenge
Australia is now a technology-driven economy where science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) are leading the nation's GDP. This shift has created major disruption to our workforce.
According to CEDA’s report “Australia’s future workforce”, more than 40% of jobs that exist today will likely disappear in the next 10-15 years due to technological advancements. These job will be replaced by STEM jobs.
We firmly believe it’ll be our next generation of students who will fill these new roles, but they will need opportunities to realise and grow their passion in STEM.
The first step for our students is engagement and ensuring the students feel connected to their education. The equation is straight forward; engaged students equal better learning outcomes.
Students are engaged when they feel a sense of connection with their passion and when the tasks they undertake have meaning for them. This true engagement is authentic learning and with authentic learning comes the skills and knowledge required to excel at what they love.
We believe we have a solution.
We know it takes a village to raise a child.
We need to provide students, from at an early stage, opportunities to engage with real industry opportunities and the best professional expertise.
Students and teachers also need to engage with industry practises and the latest technologies. Providing students with opportunities in STEM requires us to recruit the right type of people - people with industry expertise and the know-how to engage and enthuse young people.
We create opportunities to develop this capacity using industry professionals to run five specialised workshops per term at our in strategically-located innovation centres.
Value propositions
Value to Students (and Parents) Target Age 10 to 13 year olds
• Engages students in purposeful and meaningful opportunities in STEM
• Personalizes learning aligned with student pathways
• Develops emotional intelligence through authentic “learning by doing”
• Broadens the extracurricular opportunities a school can offer
Value to Undergraduates
• Provides undergraduates with opportunities to develop interpersonal skills
• Provides undergraduates with introductions to potential intern opportunities
• Provides undergraduates with work integrated learning opportunities to further develop skills
Value to SMEs
• Promotes employee engagement
• Provides opportunities to develop interns and foster strong engagement in students
• Promotes ongoing learning through two way mentoring
Value to Industry
• Facilitates opportunities for ongoing learning to all members of the workforce
• Enhances employee engagement
• Early talent identification of both interns and students
• The opportunity to partner with setting curriculum priorities
• Collaboration with complementary partners
• Professional Development
• Opportunity to deliver on CSR
Value to Government (and wider community)
• Addresses the shortage of STEM expertise in schools
• Encourages collaboration amongst schools over competition
• Reduces demands on services specifically relating to education of constituents
• Increases opportunities to assist with services provided and enhances Community Wellbeing of all constituents
Value to Schools
• Better engages “all” students
• Outsourcing STEM specialists to work with their students
• Builds capacity in teaching staff
• Greater collaboration within Community
We create opportunities for Students and Undergraduates to develop their capacity using SMEs to run five specialised workshops per term. Industry hosts these workshops.
Specialised Workshops that develop capacity
SMEs from industry, undergraduates studying education, engineering and digital technology, will provide students (Aged 10 to 13) with the opportunity to participate in experiential learning or to tinker with a project over the course of a term.
Summary
We are currently running one workshop out of BOSCH HO fortnightly. In one year we plan to increase this to weekly and recruit another Industry to develop capacities in AR and VR. This will entail weekly workshops in each location.
Every quarter we expect to add a workshop that will cater for:
• 10 additional students (Aged 10 – 13)
• 6 Undergraduates
• 3 SMEs
Over three years, we will increase our capacity to host workshops from 1 to 12 over 6 HUBS/Industries.
This will mean RTL will engage with:
• 780 students in total
• 468 undergraduates in total
• 234 Subject Matter Experts
After 3 years of partnering with Industry we plan to re-engage with schools to offer workshops in schools.
The cost for this can be eventually shared over 6 industries costing in total $800K
We will also offer complementary tech industries the opportunity to run similar workshops from the innovation hubs.
Credits:
Created with images by iwannt - "Mathematica" • Orange42 - "Waiting for Time to Pass" • IgorSuassuna - "engineer robotics informatics" • blickpixel - "drilling head drill bit drill" • MDGovpics - "Better Choices Better Results Forum on Education" • geralt - "learn school student"