STEM for Everyone
STEM education, especially in the mathematics-heavy areas, has struggled with a history of students who feel as though the content is useless. We have all heard the question more times than we can count, “when are we ever going to use this?” The goal that I have, that is hopefully common among many other STEM educators, is to build those real life connections and help to answer those questions for our students. We want to eliminate this perception and help our students break through to the whole realm of possibilities that STEM has to offer. I feel like so many kids are so turned away from future possibilities in STEM fields due to years of negative feelings, maybe due, in part, to poor, punitive educational experiences. That is why it is my goal to not only foster effective learning in my class but to create a comfortable place where my students feel at home. Especially in a population like mine, the environment is so impor...