2019 Transforming Institutions Conference Report

Posted: Apr 23 2019 by

Kate White
Temple University

Kate White (Western Michigan University), ASCN Research Director

The 2019 ASCN Transforming Institutions Conference brought together more than 140 researchers, faculty, change agents, and administrators to focus on transforming undergraduate education. We were pleased to include many excellent presentations, posters, workshops, and symposia in our program, some organized into our four tracks: aligning faculty incentives with systemic change (ASCN working group 6), change leadership (ASCN working group 3), equity and inclusion (ASCN working group 5), and guiding theories of change (ASCN working group 1). We'd like to share some highlights from the conference and feedback from our attendees -- keep reading for more! More

Funding Educational Change Projects: A Panel Discussion at the 2019 Transforming Institutions Conference

Posted: Apr 18 2019 by

Kate White
Temple University

Kate White (Western Michigan University), ASCN Research Director

The panel on funding at the 2019 Transforming Institutions Conference featured two representatives from funding agencies: David Asai (Senior Director for Science Education, HHMI) and Andrea Nixon (Program Director, Division of Undergraduate Education and Co-Lead, Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) Program, NSF). Gita Bangera (Bellevue College, moderator) introduced our panelists, who started by discussing current initiatives at HHMI and NSF.

David Asai presented HHMI's new competition in the Inclusive excellence initiative; Andrea Nixon discussed NSF's programs in the Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR Core Research and Building Capacity in STEM Educational Research/BCSER) and their new solicitation for Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) grants in the Institutional and Community Transformation Track.

Our panelists answered audience questions and we share some of their responses below. More

Breaking Down Silos meeting contributes to the goals of Working Group 1

Posted: Feb 12 2019 by

Daniel Reinholz
San Diego State University

Tessa Andrews
University of Georgia

Tessa Andrews (University of Georgia) and Dan Reinholz (San Diego State University) Twenty-five researchers met for a 2.5-day meeting at the Center for Mathematics and Science Education at San Diego State University to discuss change theories. This working meeting was supported by a National Science Foundation conference grant (#1830897/1830860) and led by PIs Daniel Reinholz and Tessa Andrews. The meeting brought together early-career scholars to foster cross-disciplinary sense-making and collaborations around change theories. Meeting attendees included graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, faculty of higher education, project advisors, and Discipline-Based Education Research (DBER) faculty in the disciplines of mathematics, biology, physics, geoscience, chemistry, and engineering. More

Frameworks for Inclusive Excellence and Systemic Change

Posted: Oct 12 2017 by

Susan Shadle
Boise State University

Susan Shadle, Boise State University

In the work I and my colleagues have done to create change around STEM Education on our own campus we've intentionally worked at two levels. We try to focus both on what will help individual faculty to make changes to their teaching and on how we can shift norms, structures, and teaching culture at the institutional level. My focus as a faculty developer has historically been focused on helping faculty make changes to their pedagogy through exploration and adoption of a variety of active learning pedagogies. I've also been interested in how the spaces in which faculty teach and the norms and policies that guide their practice can promote the adoption of evidence-based teaching practice. More recently, and for a variety of reasons, I've become more interested in how to support faculty to pay attention to their classrooms as inclusive places for learning and the degree to which their courses help to support equitable outcomes for students. While these ideas are connected to good pedagogical practice, thinking about inclusivity has prompted me to expand my toolbox. More

Reflections on the SMTI/ASCN Workshop on Diversity and Inclusion

Posted: Jul 13 2017 by

Inese Berzina-Pitcher
Western Michigan University

Inese Berzina-Pitcher

Last month in partnership with the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) we organized SMTI/ASCN Workshop on Diversity and Inclusion.

One of the major objectives of the workshop was to advance a dialog on diversity and inclusion in undergraduate STEM education between practitioners transforming institutions and researchers who are studying systemic change at higher education institutions.

The workshop featured case studies of institutions that are making progress on increasing diversity and inclusion on their campuses. These case studies were used to stimulate small group discussion amongst all participants on what is working or not on their campuses. In addition, small group discussion by ASCN working groups also were offered.

With a great interest we read reflections offered by the workshop participants and in turn More