Inclusivity in Introductory STEM Courses: Mini-Workshops

Inclusivity in introductory STEM courses: Mini-Workshops

Description

    We are planning three interactive Zoom mini-workshops to help STEM educators improve inclusivity in introductory courses. Each workshop will be facilitated by an expert in the field, but there will be opportunities for active participation. The goal is for participants to leave the workshops with specific ideas of activities and approaches that can be integrated into courses at their home institutions. We are aiming to make it as easy as possible for interested educators to participate. Each workshop requires a time commitment of only 1.5 hours, and participants can sign up for any or all of the workshops (it is not necessary to commit to all three).

    The three workshops are:

    • Workshop #1: Monday, March, 21, 2022, 4 - 5:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time
      Prof. Mica Estrada, University of California, San Franciso: "Creating Pathways of Kindness and Inclusion in STEM Education"

      Dr. Estrada will talk about how shift to classrooms, training programs and mentorship relationships that provide kindness cues that affirm social inclusion may impact the integration experience for students, faculty, and administrators. She will particularly focus on how these shifts impact people historically excluded because of their ethnicity and race (PEER) in academia and underrepresented among Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) degree earners and career pathways.

    • Workshop #2: Tuesday, April 19, 2022, 4 - 5:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time
      Prof. Chandralekha Singh, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh: "Promoting Equity in Science Learning"

      Instructors often only focus on content knowledge and skills to improve student engagement and learning in science courses. However, students’ sense-of-belonging, self-efficacy and mindset can also play an important role in their engagement and success in science. For example, students’ sense of belonging in a science class, their self-efficacy, and views about whether intelligence in science is “fixed” or “malleable” can affect engagement and learning. These types of concerns can especially impact the learning outcomes of marginalized students and stereotype threats can exacerbate these issues. I will discuss prior research studies that show how different types of social psychological interventions (e.g., social belonging and growth mindset) have improved the learning outcomes of all students, and this is especially true for marginalized students in science fields. I will discuss how ecological belonging interventions can be adapted and implemented in science classes to make them more equitable and inclusive. These types of interventions are short even though they have the potential to impact student outcomes significantly—especially for marginalized students in science classes.

    • Workshop #3: Bla, May BLA, 4 - 5:30 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (Presumably, a session on whiteness and structural racism in introductory STEM courses)

    Registration

    To register for one or more of the mini-workshops:
    • To register for mini-workshop #1 (Prof. Mica Estrada, University of California, San Franciso: "Creating Pathways of Kindness and Inclusion in STEM Education"), click here.
    • To register for mini-workshop #2 (Prof. Chandralekha Singh, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, University of Pittsburgh: "Promoting Equity in Science Learning"), click here.
    • Bla

    For questions, contact Tom Solomon (tsolomon@bucknell.edu)

    These mini-workshops are sponsored by FLAMEnet and by Research Corporation through the Cottrell Scholar Collaborative program.