Cognia and Colegio CIEDI partner to strengthen STEM education.
Since STEM education is a relatively new instructional approach, many schools are trying to gauge the quality of the programs they offer. Colegio CIEDI, an International Baccalaureate (IB) Continuum school in Bogotá, Colombia, had fully implemented an integrated STEM (i-STEM) program in 2021. Discovered by CIEDI head Felipe Palacios during his doctoral research in Australia, the program had earned the school a strong reputation. However, Palacios and deputy head David Jácome wanted to ensure that CIEDI’s approach was meeting rigorous standards for quality.
Colegio CIEDI’s i-STEM program helps the school’s approximately 450 students integrate and apply knowledge across STEM subjects and develop problem-solving skills. CIEDI leadership decided that going through the Cognia STEM Certification process would make the already excellent program even more robust. The certification review team provided CIEDI with recommendations for measuring and analyzing students’ STEM mastery. In addition, the school had the distinction of earning a perfect score for its alignment with the fourth Cognia STEM Performance Standard: Leaders engage a diverse network of community partners and stakeholders in order to support and sustain STEM programs and initiatives. CIEDI is currently exploring the expansion of that network to further enhance its i-STEM approach.