Dive Brief:
- A new study out of the University of Missouri found secondary school science teachers buy into "notable climate change misconceptions" at the same rate as the average American.
- The report's author, MU College of Education Assistant Professor Benjamin Herman, blamed a lack of professional development and an inability to think about climate change through a multidisciplinary lens for the knowledge deficit.
- In spite of this, Herman said "science teachers have a crucial professional and ethical responsibility to accurately convey to their students how climate change is studied and why scientists believe the climate is changing.”
Dive Insight:
In higher ed, there has been recent murmuring over the notion that professors are hired to teach, but are never given the pedagogical training to ensure effectiveness. This study sheds light on the confluence of problems in the K-12 sector that sees very few teachers as subject matter experts, and even a growing number who have previous teaching experience or training. Programs like Teach for America seek to address the teacher shortage across the country, but often place teachers who are neither subject matter experts, native teachers nor invested enough in the profession to seek training.
But even for seasoned, passionate teachers, professional development is imperative not just to keep student learning fresh, but to prevent teacher burnout.
Strong PD is the difference between outdoor lessons that involve taking students outside to learn versus a whiteboard in front of a row of benches and arming those same students with real-life problems and tools to seek the answers to those problems using their environment. It is the difference between teachers using a SmartBoard as simply a more modern overhead projector and those fully embracing the board's ability to engage students in interactive lessons. And it is the difference between a classroom full of engaged students excited about learning and a room full of students struggling to apply content to their lives.