Blog posts

Ensuring that all students have substantive opportunities to engage in equitable sensemaking within STEM classrooms is critically important. But for teachers to learn how to create and maintain this kind of classroom culture, they need opportunities to engage in repeated practice where they can refine their instructional decision-making and capabilities.

There's an old saying that interesting things happen at boundaries:  Where the land meets the ocean, great seaports arise. Where nation borders nation, new cultures and languages arise. And at the thin boundary where earth meets sky, life emerges. 

It can be a challenge to plan a conference session that effectively engages panelists from different institutions and research backgrounds. The panelists may or may not know one another, or one another’s work. How do you plan for a dialogue that showcases each panelist and their work while also highlighting areas of overlapping interest? Here are a session designer’s strategies as remarked upon by the panelists involved in the session.

In this video conversation, listen to Dr. Rabiah Mayas and Dennis Schatz discuss the benefits and critical elements of programs that connect formal STEM education to the teaching and learning that happens in homes, communities, and informal institutions. They also consider the opportunities for the field, especially in the context of social justice movements and the COVID-19 pandemic.