Patrick Brown

Patrick L. Brown is a science educator and curriculum leader who serves as the executive director of STEM/STEAM and career education for the Fort Zumwalt School District in O’Fallon/St. Charles, Missouri. He earned a PhD in curriculum and instruction from the University of Missouri–Columbia and has extensive teaching experience across elementary, middle, and high school levels, as well as in undergraduate and graduate teacher education courses.

Brown is the author of multiple NSTA Press titles, including the bestselling Instructional Sequence Matters series and The Explore-Before-Explain Guidebook for Science Education, which promote an explore‑before‑explain approach to conceptually focused, evidence‑based science teaching. He coauthored Activating Students’ Ideas: Linking Formative Assessment Probes to Instructional Sequence, which connects formative assessment probes with instructional sequencing, and has written on the integration of “Explore‑Before‑Explain” and Uncovering Student Ideas probes for elementary and middle grades. His work appears in NSTA’s Science and Children and other professional venues, where he focuses on activating students’ ideas and improving science learning through research‑informed instructional design.