AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT

Featuring Jason McKenna

Q: What inspired you to write this book?

I am a firm believer that schools cannot outpace the capacity of their teachers. Therefore, if you want to improve schools, invest in teachers. Make sure they have the training and equipment to teach effectively. I hope that my book can be a means to help teachers with STEM—whether they are just getting started or they have been teaching STEM for years.

Q: What challenges will this book help educators overcome?

STEM can be challenging—teachers are often asked to implement STEM in addition to everything else being asked of them. Hopefully, my book provides them with clear pathways to get started with STEM no matter their budget or experience level. Additionally, I hope the book clears up some misconceptions around STEM learning principles and STEM pedagogy. For example, it is important for our teachers to recognize that ALL students have the capacity to be creative.

Q: What excites you most about the content of this book?

One of my favorite parts of the book is the section that talks about creating a classroom of risk-takers. How do we create activities where failure is the goal? Why should failure be the goal? How does this prepare students to work in a knowledge-based economy? This section tries to address all of these questions and more.

Q: If educators take one thing away from reading this book, what would you hope that would be?

Any teacher can be a STEM teacher and any student can be a STEM learner.