Challenge
Although it has been well established that active learning techniques are required for deeper learning and more equitable outcomes in STEM, the shift away from “content coverage” lecture-style learning has been slow, and equity gaps in gateway STEM courses persist. With the shift to remote instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic, both problems (over-emphasis on “content delivery” and inequitable outcomes) are exacerbated.
Project Design
This project, led by CSU Institute for Teaching and Learning (ITL) and the California Community Colleges Success Network (3CSN), engages 200 STEM instructors over two years into a multi-faceted community of practice grounded in a powerful framework for teaching and learning, the Reading Apprenticeship framework. STEM instructors will be supported to think through and plan how to explicitly teach students how to read and problem solve in context, in their discipline. Providing time and space for redesigning lessons as well as experience using digital tools to support active learning, the learning community will accelerate the pace at which STEM faculty adopt culturally relevant and high-intensity active learning techniques in online and remote environments and will impact at least 20,000 students.
Participants will:
- Build knowledge about how people learn, including the role of discourse and how to support STEM literacy development
- Build knowledge about equity, including how to infuse culturally relevant and responsive pedagogies into STEM classrooms
- Develop as leaders and change agents (according to their preference and aptitude) in various domains:
- facilitating active learning with students
- facilitating courageous conversations with colleagues
- learning how to facilitate professional learning workshops on their campus
- Disseminate the artifacts of their learning to be used as resources for other STEM instructors, specifically by contributing to a library of STEM OER texts, text-based lessons, and video artifacts of the lessons in action.
