Black people make up just 9% of the STEM workforce in the U.S. As a scholar who studies how STEM educators can more effectively reach Black students, I want to help all people develop an understanding of how anti-Black racism is a significant barrier for Black students learning STEM. Many scholars have argued that our current ways of teaching STEM are bad […] … learn more→
Monthly Archives: June 2021

3 ways schools can improve STEM learning for Black students

A university course on pandemics: What we learned when 80 experts, 300 alumni and 600 students showed up
When we decided last summer to create an undergraduate course about pandemics, we faced skepticism. Weren’t students and instructors tired of the COVID-19 pandemic? And would looking at pandemics from the perspective of numerous disciplines make it hard to address the topic with depth, or would we achieve a sense of cohesion? As an anthropologist, […] … learn more→

I’m fully vaccinated – should I keep wearing a mask for my unvaccinated child?
Fully vaccinated adults are celebrating their new freedom and removing their face masks. Yet for parents of children under age 12, the rejoicing might be short-lived. Since children that age do not yet have access to vaccines, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says they are better off staying masked when in public and around people they don’t […] … learn more→

During lockdown, South African students wrote a book about ‘a world gone mad’
South African student voices have largely remained unheard in formal discussions around COVID-19. A pandemic that should not be put to waste, COVID-19, on some podiums, is seen as laying the groundwork for germination of seeds of change. The students in this collection of stories by the Initiative for Creative African Narratives (iCAN, a project […] … learn more→

Why too many recorded lecture videos may be bad for maths students’ learning
Screen-based devices have increasingly become part of our human experience – even more so since the pandemic began. This trend includes watching more and more videos. For example, before COVID-19, the average American watched about six hours of videos a day on devices ranging from televisions to desktop computers and mobile phones. By one estimate, this figure has “surged” more than 40% […] … learn more→

Academic writers as readers
Many academic writers are avid readers. That’s because there is a strong connection – not causal, but surely correlated, she says hastily – between reading and writing. Reading and writing are mutually beneficial, they feed each other. I was thinking about the read-write connection just this morning as I sat reading the books section of […] … learn more→

9 in 10 LGBTQ+ students say they hear homophobic language at school, and 1 in 3 hear it almost every day
Bills in the federal and New South Wales parliaments have sought to stop teachers talking about gender and sexuality diversity in the name of either religious freedom or parents’ rights. If passed in its current form, the NSW Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill 2020 would prohibit teachers from discussing gender and sexuality diversity. It would also make offering targeted, requested […] … learn more→

Sweets, a way to create social links between schoolchildren?
One might think that candy is not found in secondary schools, that it is “childish” foods, eaten on birthdays or other celebrations. However, these sweets, which, according to many parents must remain on the order of the occasional, are invited daily to college. Although they are very often prohibited in the internal regulations of schools, students […] … learn more→

In this ‘job-ready’ era, it’s worth looking at how a US-style broader education can benefit uni students
The Job-Ready Graduates Package is nearing the end of its first full semester of implementation. Its basic premise is that the main reason the modern Australian university exists is to train the next generation in areas of economic need. “Universities must teach Australians the skills needed to succeed in the jobs of the future,” said the then federal education […] … learn more→

Philosophy: three keys to learning to overcome failure
With the first verdicts from the Parcoursup post-baccalaureate orientation site , the period for competition and exam results begins. Many young people will see their wishes come true. But many others will be disappointed. The impossibility of integrating the school for which they were preparing, or the course which seemed ideal to them to carry out their personal projects represents […] … learn more→