Editorial: Stuck in the Certainty Gradient | NSTA

Editorial: Stuck in the Certainty Gradient

Journal of College Science Teaching—March/April 2011

We are increasingly seeing incoming college students who haven’t experienced (or perhaps haven’t responded to) this gradual presentation of increasing uncertainty. And the author believes this is one of the profound and unrecognized disconnects in our relationships with our students. They are stuck in the certainty gradient. We should seek to be moving them (gently, if possible) a bit farther along this gradient. If we could manage this change in our own perspective, perhaps we could instill in some a love of the challenge in learning that would serve them well in the future.

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