A. Joseph Tamer
INCLUSIVITY & BELONGING
I cultivated a partnership between Los Angeles Unified School District and ASU's ETX Center centered on professional development for STEM educators serving one of the nation's largest and most diverse student communities. Working alongside teachers, we explored how adaptive learning and digital inquiry could complement classroom practice. The partnership also allowed us to pilot Infiniscope experiences with LAUSD students, study their effectiveness, and improve our designs based on authentic classroom evidence.
Professional Development with LAUSD
Empowering Indigenous Voices
My work with Native Hawaiian educators taught me that inclusive learning requires more than representing different communities; it requires creating opportunities for communities to tell their own stories. Through Infiniscope, we worked with educators, cultural practitioners, and scientists to develop place-based experiences grounded in local knowledge. We later trained educators to create their own virtual tours, shifting authorship toward those best positioned to connect culture, place, science, and community.
Affordable Courseware Ecosystems
Access to effective learning should not depend on a student's ability to afford expensive instructional materials. I helped develop CourseWorks as a nonprofit, university-led alternative that combines evidence-based courseware with shared technology and distribution infrastructure. Courses are priced affordably, while participating institutions share costs and expertise. Rather than extracting profits, the model reinvests revenue into course improvement, research, professional learning, and the communities using the materials.
Career Pathway Exploration
Students are more likely to imagine themselves in STEM when they can see the people behind the science and recognize that there is no single path to a scientific career. I helped develop Interview a Scientist as an adaptive experience where students choose the questions they want to ask NASA scientists about school, careers, challenges, and their lives beyond work. Featuring scientists across backgrounds and career stages gives learners agency while expanding the people and possibilities they encounter.
Closing Student Performance Gaps
When the Gates Foundation challenged leading learning-design teams to address persistent performance gaps for first-generation college students, ETX and Carnegie Mellon's OLI responded by creating REAL CHEM. We combined relevant contexts, active learning, personalized feedback, and continuous research to design for students too often underserved by traditional courseware. Early results show improved student success alongside meaningful reductions in performance gaps, demonstrating that inclusive design can benefit all learners..
Inclusive Excellence
Inclusive excellence asks us to look beyond who has access to STEM and consider whether students experience learning environments where they can belong and succeed. Through ASU's HHMI Inclusive Excellence initiative, I helped support work examining how course design and student experiences shape science identity and belonging. The research reinforced an important lesson for me: improving outcomes requires attention not only to what we teach, but to the environments, relationships, and experiences through which students learn.
