Unlike roles in nearly every other profession, the job of teacher is undifferentiated — their first day in the classroom looks remarkably similar to day 5,000. Throughout those days, teachers are expected to be experts in too many areas. This makes the job untenable, and many talented individuals choose to leave the profession. This high rate of attrition means the U.S. education system does not reliably deliver quality learning outcomes nor the experiences needed to prepare young people for a future of constant change and challenge.
How do we improve effectiveness of ASU’s STEM courses using evidence-based instructional methods and materials?
How do we explain to students the difference between “sequential,” or cause-and-effect processes for some concepts and emergent causal effects for other processes? Most people are familiar with simple sequential cause-and-effect concepts, such as a child kicking a ball and the ball hitting and breaking a window. Science processes based on a sequence of events are easily understood by most students. But many people are less familiar with processes that have emergent causal effects in which collective interactions create a detectable pattern.
Many people do not know what defines a desert, what is unique about the Sonoran Desert or what this desert may have in common with others. The Sonoran Desert was not included in the Encyclopedia of Life, a free, online collaborative encyclopedia documenting the 1.9 million living species known to science.
Ariel Anbar and Punya Mishra write, “We are underprepared at multiple levels for the economic, environmental and societal disruptions that accompany the advance of global civilization and technology.” Anbar is a President’s Professor in ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration and School of Molecular Sciences, and an affiliate faculty member of Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College. Mishra is associate dean of scholarship and innovation at MLFTC.