Thursday, August 28, 2025
As you settle into the 2025-2026 school year and start getting to know this year’s students, the team at National Math and Science Initiative encourages STEM educators to focus on preparing students for:
Workforce Readiness
The Fourth Industrial Revolution
The Impact of STEM on Everyday Life (Career and Otherwise)
Using STEM for Sustainable Solutions for Global Challenges
Moving Forward with Confidence
In order to achieve those goals, we’ve identified seven traits and tools that effective STEM educators need to deeply engage students for peak learning in the midst of a rapidly changing educational and political environment.
1. Commitment to Inclusion
Although most educators have a heart for all students, building a culture of inclusion doesn’t just happen. “Teachers are probably more well-intentioned than the general population, but they still have the same bias levels (according to research),” Jordan Starck explained in her paper, “Teachers Are People Too,” which was published in the peer-reviewed journal Educational Researcher.
Keeping this in mind, achieving a culture where everyone feels like they belong requires intentionality, financial resources, a diverse staff, and a host of other foundational elements.
It’s essential to create a learning environment that is built upon emotional responsiveness, incorporates inclusive language and accessible materials, offers opportunities for mentorship and extracurricular involvement, accounts for socio-economic needs, and utilizes universal design for learning (UDL) to address learning barriers.
2. Adaptability and a Growth Mindset
When students observe teachers or administrators performing their responsibilities in outdated or blasé ways because “that’s what we’ve always done,” it demonstrates that growth is just an option, rather than being a quality that should be actively pursued.
Instead, STEM educators must model curiosity, a thirst for knowledge, and an ability to pivot as technologies and teaching methods evolve. Encouraging experimentation among students creates a safe space for trial and error, which is a vital building block for critical thinking. When students are invited to ask questions without fear of being mocked by their peers or dismissed by their teachers, they gain the confidence needed for an inquisitive mindset.
We recognize that limited time and jam-packed lesson plans can be a barrier to flexibility, free thinking, and interactive exchanges. Therefore, this is an area where administrators and school boards can advocate for classroom teachers by seeking grants to fund classroom support or by providing them with access to quality professional development resources.
3. Industry and Career Awareness
The United States is facing a STEM talent crisis, according to a 2024 report from the National Science Board . This crisis is corroborated by The State of U.S. Science and Engineering 2024, “We are not producing STEM workers in either sufficient numbers or diversity to meet the workforce needs of the 21st century knowledge economy.”
Yet, depending on what grade level or subject you teach, your students may not be seriously thinking about their future careers. And honestly, with the rapid changes occurring in the global workforce, many of the jobs they’ll fill haven’t even been created yet. That’s why STEM educators must keep a finger on the pulse of emerging technologies and career opportunities.
While certain jobs aren’t likely to be eliminated, they will be carried out in a very different manner in the future. Medicine is a perfect example you can share with students. With shifting care models (including virtual consultations and hospital at home), AI-predictive healthcare becoming more commonplace, a growing shift from reactive treatment to proactive prevention using technologies such as genomics, increased reliance on real-time data, and many other advancements, the medical field will continue to evolve.
As educators, it’s important to help students set expectations that their careers will not be linear. Coaching them to be adaptable with a growth mindset — along with teaching effective collaboration and communication skills — will prepare them to excel in careers that require any of the STEM disciplines.
Show them how this knowledge of both hard and soft skills applies to specific jobs by bringing professionals into the classroom to share how they use collaboration, critical thinking, computational reasoning, and adaptability in their jobs every day. Demonstrating to students how the skills they’re learning now can be used in the future, can fuel a passion for learning that will help keep the STEM pipeline full.
4. Digital Literacy Skills and EdTech Proficiency
The rate of technology rollouts makes it impossible to be an expert in all things. Educators can approach the overwhelming task of achieving digital literacy and EdTech proficiency in a variety of ways. Here are two options:
Discuss with administrators and peers which technologies are most impactful for the classes YOU teach and which ones are financially viable to learn. Focus on those key areas, asking admin if they can procure any needed training resources.
Take a team approach and share the learning load with your colleagues. Each of you can become a semi-expert in a specific area (AI tools, VR/AR, ChatGPT, coding platforms, simulations, etc.) or software (Canvas, Moodle, Google Classroom, etc.). Share an overview of what each of you learned and commit to being the go-to person for questions.
In addition to acquiring digital literacy for yourself, it’s important to help students become engaged with technology in a safe and ethical manner. Challenge them to think through their choices when interacting with others online and using tools that could become crutches (or outright cheating mechanisms). Some students may have free reign of technology at home, so it’s essential that you promote a culture of responsible digital citizenship within your classroom.
5. Receptiveness to Integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI)
When AI is mentioned, many people react strongly — loving, hating, or fearing it. And while the concern about such a powerful resource is valid, STEM educators that embrace and take the time to understand how to use it as an effective tool will be light years ahead of their peers.
Fortunately, technology companies that create AI products are teaming up with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) to provide free AI teacher training. Anthropic, Microsoft, and OpenAI are among the brands that have pledged $23 million combined over five years.
“The partnership will offer teachers continuing education credits, credentials and certifications, workshops, online courses, and training sessions. It will also provide continuous support and resources to keep educators in the loop on the latest AI advancements. (It) will use educator feedback and ‘actual classroom experiences’ to tweak and improve its work,” according to EdWeek.
“Teachers are facing huge challenges, which include navigating AI wisely, ethically and safely,” said Randi Weingarten, president of AFT. “The initiative will help educators better understand how the technology can be used for teaching and learning, explore issues related to student safety and privacy, and figure out how to help their students prepare for an economy in which AI tools will be used extensively.”
Wyman Khuu, head of learning engineering at Playlab.ai — a nonprofit that helps educators create AI-powered apps — believes that educators shouldn’t just be consumers of new technology, but contributors to the emerging products. Taking this approach will help ensure that integration of AI and machine learning (ML) into EdTech tools and student resources will meet actual classroom needs.
6. Instructional Agility and Pedagogy
Even for students that enjoy math and science, sometimes it can be difficult for them to wrap their mind around concepts. And for those students that haven’t (yet) discovered the joy of math and science, it’s even more essential to explain these concepts in understandable and accessible ways.
Nearly half of the teens in a March 2025 EdWeek Survey said that “having teachers who explain things so they understand them would have a major impact on their level of motivation in science, technology, engineering, and math classes.”
Classroom teachers can utilize project-based learning (PBL) to encourage problem solving, either collaboratively or individually. Building this into your pedagogy is a powerful tool for engaging students, especially those that may struggle with more traditional approaches to learning.
When educators utilize instructional agility, they can address diverse learning needs, giving more students an opportunity to understand the complex material. This also demonstrates to other students that compassion, flexibility, and grace are powerful ways to approach day-to-day challenges.
If possible — depending on your teaching responsibilities — designing interdisciplinary lessons linking science, math, engineering, and tech can help students “connect the dots” between these important subjects. Collaborating with colleagues in cross-curricular planning can be another effective approach.
In addition, when you create lessons that also integrate communication requirements into the plan, that helps students learn to work cooperatively with those who have different skillsets than they do and reinforces the need for effective communication in all aspects of life.
7. Modifiable Classroom Management Techniques
Incorporating positive behavioral interventions and supports (PBIS) can help foster a feeling of inclusivity with success opportunities for all. Finding a balance between structure and flexibility for classroom management offers students a healthy learning environment.
Another area of challenge for today’s teachers is managing device use, online behavior, and digital collaboration. For some school districts, the goal posts continue to move as administrators and school boards are implementing varying levels of restriction on student-owned devices in the classroom or building.
If your district allows phones, tablets, and laptops to be brought in from home, it may be wise to align your classroom rules with your peers. Students are better able to meet expectations when they are the same across the board.
STEM Educators to the Rescue
The need for engaged STEM educators has never been greater and it’s not hyperbole to say that you’re literally shaping the future of the workforce. At NMSI, we believe you’re rockstars and are here to support your hard work and dedication to students across the United States. We are cheering for you to have the best school year possible!
If your educators need more support and resources, please reach out to our team to learn more about utilizing NMSI Professional Development for the 2026/27 school year!