Teaching Math, Science, and Technology in Schools Today: Guidelines for Engaging Both Eager and Reluctant Learners offers unique, engaging, and thought-provoking ideas. The activities open imaginative doors to learning and provide opportunities for all learners. It surveys today’s most important trends and dilemmas while explaining how collaboration and critical thinking can be translated into fresh classroom practices. Questions, engagement, and curiosity are viewed as natural partners for mathematical problem solving, scientific inquiry, and learning about technology. Like the Common Core State Standards, the book builds on the social nature of learning to provide suggestions for both eager and reluctant learners. The overall goal of the book is to deepen the collective conversation, challenge thinking, and provide some up-to-date tools for teachers so they can help reverse the steady erosion of math, science, and technology understanding in the general population.

Each new headline about American students' poor performance in math and science leads to new calls for reform in teaching. Education Teachers of Science, Mathematics, and Technology puts the whole picture together by synthesizing what we know about the quality of math and science teaching, drawing conclusions about why teacher preparation needs reform, and then outlining recommendations for accomplishing the most important goals before us. As a framework for addressing the task, the book advocates partnerships among school districts, colleges, and universities, with contributions from scientists, mathematicians, teacher educators, and teachers. It then looks carefully at the status of the education reform movement and explores the motives for raising the bar for how well teachers teach and how well students learn. Also examined are important issues in teacher professionalism: what teachers should be taught about their subjects, the utility of in-service education, the challenge of program funding, and the merits of credentialing. Professional Development Schools are reviewed and vignettes presented that describe exemplary teacher development practices.

Inquiry into Math, Science and Technology for Teaching Young Children uses current theory as foundation for the rich and varied math and science curriculum in preschool and kindergarten. The curriculum in this text easily embraces developmentally appropriate practice, emergent curriculum, Reggio Emilia and the Project Approach. Students can connect the rich math and science curriculum with the national standards in math and science plus the NAEYC Early Childhood Professional Preparation Standards. By using the ways we know children learn best, students are guided to develop their own curriculum for children while incorporating the national standards. The text guides early childhood students to inquire how children learn by capturing the innate curiosity and emerging thinking skills of young children. The writing of this text invites students to explore math and science inquiry themselves, to engage in the curiosity and innovative thinking of young children, and become immersed in their new concept of teaching through experiencing children's learning.

In a rapidly evolving local and global economy, skills related to mathematical problem solving, scientific inquiry, and technological innovation are becoming more critical for success in and out of school. Thus, Demystify Math, Science, and Technology addresses the need to cultivate these skills in young students so that ingenuity, teamwork, and imaginative skills become part of their arsenal in dealing with real world challenges. This whole package of attributes is essential for learners imagining new scenarios and future work in areas that don’t even exist yet. Another important issue is that teachers now deal with students who span the entire spectrum of learning. Students differ widely in levels of preparedness, personal interests, and cultural ways of seeing and experiencing the world. One size does not fit all. Teachers need to learn to turn diversity into an advantage because innovation builds on the social nature of learning; the more diverse the inputs, the more interesting the outputs. The authors also believe that no one should be sidelined with basic skill training in a way that keeps them away from the creative and collaborative engagement associated with problem solving, inquiry, and the technological products of math and science.

There exists a wealth of information about inquiry and about science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), but current research lacks meaningfully written, thoughtful applications of both topics.Cases on Inquiry through Instructional Technology in Math and Science represents the work of many authors toward meaningful discourse of inquiry used in STEM teaching. This book presents insightful information to teachers and teacher education candidates about using inquiry in the real classroom, case studies from which research suggests appropriate uses, and tangible direction for creating their own inquiry based STEM activities. Sections take the reader logically through the meaning of inquiry in STEM teaching, how to use technology in modern classrooms, STEM projects which successfully integrate inquiry methodology, and inquiry problem solving within STEM classrooms with the aim of creating activities and models useful for real-world classrooms.

Each new headline about American students' poor performance in math and science leads to new calls for reform in teaching. Education Teachers of Science, Mathematics, and Technology puts the whole picture together by synthesizing what we know about the quality of math and science teaching, drawing conclusions about why teacher preparation needs reform, and then outlining recommendations for accomplishing the most important goals before us. As a framework for addressing the task, the book advocates partnerships among school districts, colleges, and universities, with contributions from scientists, mathematicians, teacher educators, and teachers. It then looks carefully at the status of the education reform movement and explores the motives for raising the bar for how well teachers teach and how well students learn. Also examined are important issues in teacher professionalism: what teachers should be taught about their subjects, the utility of in-service education, the challenge of program funding, and the merits of credentialing. Professional Development Schools are reviewed and vignettes presented that describe exemplary teacher development practices.

Proven strategies for reforming STEM education in America’s schools, colleges, and universities. One study after another shows American students ranking behind their international counterparts in the STEM fields—science, technology, engineering, and math. Businesspeople and cultural critics such as Bill Gates warn that this alarming situation puts the United States at a serious disadvantage in the high-tech global marketplace of the twenty-first century, and President Obama places improvement in these areas at the center of his educational reform. What can be done to reverse this poor performance and to unleash America’s wasted talent? David E. Drew has good news—and the tools America needs to keep competitive. Drawing on both academic literature and his own rich experience, Drew identifies proven strategies for reforming America’s schools, colleges, and universities, and his comprehensive review of STEM education in the United States offers a positive blueprint for the future. These research-based strategies include creative and successful methods for building strong programs in science and mathematics education and show how the achievement gap between majority and minority students can be closed. A crucial measure, he argues, is recruiting, educating, supporting, and respecting America’s teachers. Accessible, engaging, and hard hitting, STEM the Tide is a clarion call to policymakers, administrators, educators, and everyone else concerned about students’ participation in the STEM fields and America’s competitive global position.