A framework for equitable, student-centered instruction in undergraduate STEM

While minoritized, low-income, and first-generation students in undergraduate STEM programs benefit the most from research-based instructional strategies (RBIS), such as active learning strategies, they are least likely to experience them (AAAS, 2019; Kuh, 2008; Museus, Paler, Davis & Maramba, 2011). Our poster will describe a collaborative project across three institutions to embed the use of equitable, student-centered instructional strategies within undergraduate STEM courses and departments. We employ the Four Categories of Change Strategies model (Henderson, Beach, and Finkelstein, 2011) to generate new knowledge about how change strategies can be implemented and sustained. The involvement of three distinct institutions in this project help increase the generalizability of the research findings about the faculty, departmental, and institutional factors that support and/or inhibit the effective implementation of the change strategies.

In line with the four categories of change model, the project is collaborating with STEM faculty to: 1) Develop a shared framework that operationalizes RBIS and includes equity and inclusion as key components, 2) Develop the knowledge and skills of STEM faculty and department chairs around the shared framework, 3) Engage Instructional Change Teams of faculty members in structured, peer observations for feedback, and 4) Collaborate with department chairs and faculty leaders to facilitate departmental-level conversations about the barriers and supports to faculty's use of equitable, student-centered teaching and learning strategies. One of the biggest barriers to STEM faculty's use of RBIS is the lack of a shared framework to define, measure, and reward effective teaching (Wieman, 2017). Furthermore, such frameworks should redefine equity and inclusion as key components of effective instruction (AAAS, 2019). In our poster session, we will highlight our framework for equitable, student-centered instruction in undergraduate STEM, along with the resources and processes we have created to help faculty develop their knowledge and skills with the framework's pedagogies and practices.