2015 AAAS Annual Meeting (12-16 February 2015)

February 12 - 16, 2015

The Future of Graduate Education in STEM: Thinking Beyond Disciplines

STEM education is critical to the U.S. and global economies. Of 2.4 million job openings in STEM by 2018, nearly one-quarter of them will require graduate degrees. A 2012 report on undergraduate STEM education from the U.S. President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology states that the United States must increase the number of STEM-trained workers by up to 1 million by 2018 to keep pace with the nation’s increasingly technological needs and argues that an optimal path to this goal lies in increased retention of STEM undergraduates during the first two years of college. The report recognizes that improving undergraduate education begins with graduate education and recommends that all postgraduate students supported by federal training grants receive instruction in modern teaching methods grounded in research on human learning. Graduate education also needs to account for the increasing interdisciplinarity in research, collaboration among scientists, a greater emphasis on addressing complex societal issues, and working and communicating with researchers from diverse academic backgrounds. Thus, this symposium will address aspects of graduate education that transcend individual disciplines. It will review recent reports on graduate education, discuss a new National Science Foundation survey of graduate students, examine effective practices in teaching and related skills, and engage participants in how they can effect change in their disciplines and home institutions.