Disrupting Secondary STEM Education
This volume brings into focus the pivotal educational years during adolescence, when many learners are exposed to implicit and explicit messages that STEM is not a viable educational pathway for them.
Challenging this notion, Disrupting Secondary STEM Education brings together a collective of critical educators who share what disruptive STEM teaching looks and feels like from an insider perspective, as well as the ways they purposefully create curriculum to subvert existing structures that can confine learning. Through disruptive STEM teaching, a joy for learning is kindled, as well as a sense of empowered criticality in students that can support their development as global citizens facing complex futures. The collection shares stories across a spectrum of educators, from those beginning their teaching journey to those who’ve stood up against narrow curriculum and standardized testing for years in the capacity of both P-12 teachers and teacher educators. The voices of these educators illustrate how the work of disruptive STEM teaching can be actualized within cohorts of future teachers, achieved through early engagement with critical theories and generative field experiences that support and affirm a wide array of identities.
This book provides multiple theoretical and practical access points for the reader to understand the work of disruptive STEM teaching and offers a way forward for those interested in developing more critical curriculum in their own classrooms. As such, it will be important reading for postgraduate students and researchers in Social Justice Education and STEM Education, as well as for in-service educators.
Margery Gardner is the Director of Teacher Preparation and an Assistant Professor in Educational Studies at Colgate University, USA.