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A practitioner's perspective on math, education & change.

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Minorities in STEM

We need to be cognizant that we and our students have different cultures, ethnicities, and backgrounds and work to shape our instruction to be inclusive. In this week’s blog, we take a look at the racial and ethnic gap in the STEM workforce in the United States

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Women in STEM - Part 2

Closing the gender gap in STEM professions requires a thoughtful review of why the gap exists. Contrary to popular belief, boys aren’t inherently better at math than girls. There are far more nuanced reasons why women don’t choose to pursue STEM professions. One of them being, that they don’t see themselves in these professions.

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Women in STEM - Part 1

STEM-based occupations are projected to grow more than any other in the next ten years. So there is a need for more students to study STEM to fill those jobs - a need that could be filled by reducing the gender gap. This brings up many questions. How big is the gap? When does it start? Why is there a gap? And the most important, what can we, as teachers in STEM, do to help close that gap?

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SAT - Why All the Controversy? Part 1

High school students around the country are gearing up to take the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). For college-bound students, it is a right of passage, a way to compare with others, and one more way to get into the college of choice. But the SAT has come under fire lately with many colleges around the country adopting a “test optional” or a “‘test blind” policy for admissions.

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Structuring Online Discussion Forums

Written online discussion forums are a great learning strategy for engaging students, for gathering assessment evidence, and to promote learning. Grounded in social learning theory, online discussion forums have such great potential. But too often they fall flat. Structuring them well from the start can set the stage for productive student discussions online.

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