Dive Brief:

• Mashable's examination of a twitter chat hosted by The USA Science and Engineering Festival reveals suggested best practices for creating high-quality STEM education.  
• The online discussion kept looping back to five suggestions for sparking student interest in science, technology, engineering, and math — which, despite their growth in importance, are still subjects where students lack essential knowledge.
• Those involved in the discussion suggested that rote memorization is killing interest in STEM subjects, that students should be conducting science research projects early and often, that peer-to-peer learning should be encouraged, and that students can learn from failure.  

Dive Insight:

STEM skills are some of the most coveted right now in the work field, yet our schools are lacking the infrastructure to make the subjects relevant and interesting to students. This disconnect has become a popular topic of discussion amongst leaders in various STEM fields. Earlier this month, a cohort of Silicon Valley leaders banded together, asking the California Gov. Jerry Brown if there were ways they could partner with the state to improve STEM learning. Their letter stated that while 90% of California schools do not teach computer science, there are "roughly 16 jobs for every computer science graduate in the state!"