Blog

The promise of approximations to enhance teacher learning is exciting, yet their design and implementation require careful consideration. This blog builds on the previous post from Bondurant and Howell (2025), where they defined and examined approximations in alignment with the Teaching for Robust Understanding (TRU) framework (Schoenfeld, 2023). An approximation is a structured, scaled-down version […]

This is the first of two blogs centered on effective approximations of practice in mathematics teacher education. In a 2024 position statement on linking mathematics education research and practice, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) states that “research should identify high-leverage, effective, equitable mathematics practices shared in useful, actionable ways” (NCTM, 2024). In […]

All students should have the opportunity to learn about science in the context of real-world issues. Using the context of socioscientific issues to center science teaching and learning helps students see the relevance of science to their everyday lives and the lives of others, and the role science plays in speaking to complex real-world issues […]

When a teacher presents a lesson to their class, especially in a high-need school, some students are engaged while many others are not. Which students tend to get the greater support for learning? Which students get overlooked? How do these become patterns over time that shape the students’ perceptions of their own intelligence and self-efficacy? […]

STEM education organizations, institutions, and programs often push the rhetoric of engaging learning experiences and positive outcomes for all students. Indeed, these are important aspirations and values. Yet, truly realizing and struggling toward such aspirations and values are not possible unless we disrupt the center. Typically, the center is comprised of the ideal/normal (1) student […]