13 research outputs found
Online administration of research-based assessments
No full textResearch-based assessments (RBAs; e.g., the Force Concept Inventory) that measure student content knowledge, attitudes, or identities have played a major role in transforming physics teaching practices. RBAs offer instructors a standardized method for empirically investigating the efficacy of their instructional practices and documenting the impacts of course transformations. Unlike course exams, the common usage of standardized RBAs across institutions uniquely supports instructors to compare their student outcomes over time or against multi-institutional data sets. While the number of RBAs and RBA-using instructors has increased over the last three decades, barriers to administering RBAs keep many physics instructors from using them.1,2 To mitigate these barriers, we have created full-service online RBA platforms (i.e., the Learning About STEM Student Outcomes [LASSO],3 Colorado Learning Attitudes About Science Survey for Experimental Physics [E-CLASS],4 and Physics Lab Inventory of Critical thinking [PLIC]5 platforms) that host, administer, score, and analyze RBAs. These web-based platforms can make it easier for instructors to use RBAs, especially as many courses have been forced to transition to online instruction.This article is published as Ben Van Dusen, Mollee Shultz, Jayson M. Nissen, Bethany R. Wilcox, N. G. Holmes, Manher Jariwala, Eleanor W. Close, H. J. Lewandowski, Steven Pollock; Online administration of research-based assessments. Am. J. Phys. 1 January 2021; 89 (1): 7–8. https://doi.org/10.1119/10.0002888. Posted with permission
Enacting Culturally Relevant Pedagogy when “Mathematics Has No Color”: Epistemological Contradictions
No full textCulturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) seeks to improve equity in instruction and leverage students’ experiences by promoting academic success, cultural competence, and sociopolitical consciousness. We examine instructors’ perceptions of student identity to understand the ways undergraduate mathematics instructors are enacting or experiencing barriers to enacting CRP. Interviews with ten mathematics faculty at Hispanic-serving institutions identified two potential barriers to enacting CRP: first, instructors’ hesitance to communicate about student identity, especially with respect to race and gender; and second, instructors holding epistemologies that mathematics is culture-free. Despite these barriers, almost all interviewees implemented the academic success tenet of CRP. These barriers may prevent instruction around cultural competence and sociopolitical consciousness, which are the two tenets that most capitalize on students’ informal knowledge, identities, and cultural experiences. Changing discourse by taking more risks in conversation and inviting a more diverse range of people to the undergraduate mathematics community are potential ways to address these barriers.This article is published as Shultz, M., Close, E., Nissen, J. et al. Enacting Culturally Relevant Pedagogy when “Mathematics Has No Color”: Epistemological Contradictions. Int. J. Res. Undergrad. Math. Ed. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40753-023-00219-x. Posted with permission. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
The Rationality of College Mathematics Instructors: The Choice to Use Inquiry-Oriented Instruction
No full textThis study of inquiry-oriented instruction (IOI) explores what inquiry-oriented practices are used by college mathematics instructors, and what relationships there are between their use of those practices, their beliefs about students’ mathematics learning, and their recognition of professional obligations. I offer a conceptualization of inquiry-oriented instruction in which IOI practices documented in the literature are organized by the theory of the instructional triangle (Cohen, Raudenbush, & Ball, 2003), which pays particular attention to instruction as transactions of content between teacher and students. The INQUiry-Oriented Instructor REview (INQUIRE) instrument was developed on this conceptualization and used to gather data on the frequency that instructors report using inquiry-oriented practices. Professional obligations of mathematics teaching include the responsibilities that instructors have towards various stakeholders, including the institution, the individual student, mathematics as a discipline, and society (Herbst & Chazan, 2012) and instructors’ recognition of these obligations was hypothesized as playing a role in explaining the use of IOI practices. A modified version of the PRofessional Obligations Scenario Evaluation (PROSE) instrument, a scenario-based assessment, was created for this study to be used with college mathematics instructors. In addition to developing the INQUIRE and PROSE instruments, this study incorporated an existing beliefs instrument (Clark et al., 2014) to measure instructors’ beliefs on students’ mathematics learning. I used factor analyses to confirm the hypothesized inquiry-oriented practices in the instructional triangle framework and hierarchical cluster modeling to reveal patterns of inquiry-oriented practices among instructors. I found that instructors reported using seven distinct sets of practices, and instructors grouped into four different clusters based on their pattern of use of these practices – revealing different characterizations of IOI. This finding has implications for future research of IOI, showing that characterizing IOI as a singular pedagogy is problematic; rather, there are different types of IOI that are grounded in content-specific interactions. The first cluster includes participants that report the highest use of teacher-student and student-student interactions, but not the highest use of the student-content practices of giving students opportunities to construct and critique claims or write proofs. The second cluster includes participants that report the highest use of the aforementioned student-content practices, and second highest use of all five other inquiry-oriented practices. The third cluster included participants that reported low use of all inquiry-oriented practices except the teacher-content ones of interactive lecture and hinting without telling, which they use at levels comparable to other clusters. These three clusters or characterizations of IOI are all juxtaposed against the fourth cluster, which had the lowest reported use of all seven practices. I used structural equation modeling to explore the hypothesized relationships. Past studies have reported inconsistencies between beliefs and practice; instructors’ degree of recognition of the professional obligations helped explain why instructors may not always actualize their beliefs in the classroom. I found that learner-focused beliefs often predict the use of inquiry-oriented practices, but recognition of the disciplinary and interpersonal obligations can work in direct opposition of those beliefs – helping to explain why instructors sometimes do not instruct with IOI even if they believe it would be beneficial. These findings have practical implications for those wishing to shift trends in college mathematics instruction. Future work could use the INQUIRE instrument to link inquiry-oriented practices to student experiences.PhDEducational StudiesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/155118/1/mollee_1.pd
STORIES OF AGENCY: DO GRADUATE STUDENTS PERCEIVE THEMSELVES AS PART OF THE MATHEMATICAL COMMUNITY?
No full textBrief Research ReportGraduate student teaching assistants (GTAs) are responsible for the instruction of undergraduate students in critical introductory courses, but are not yet in the position of professors. Given their unique status, we ask if there are differences in how graduate students and professors express their agency when speaking about their responsibilities and how graduate students position themselves as members of the community of mathematicians. We use tools from systemic functional linguistics
(Halliday, 1994) to analyze 16 interviews with graduate students and professors from research I universities. We found important differences in how graduate students and professors perceive their agency, and agency varies according to whether it concerns disciplinary or institutional responsibilities. Future research can investigate how to create more opportunities for developing the agency of GTAs in institutional decisions.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143004/1/ShultzHerbstPMENA17.pdf76Description of ShultzHerbstPMENA17.pdf : Main Articl
The role of epistemological beliefs in STEM faculty’s decisions to use culturally relevant pedagogy at Hispanic-Serving Institutions
No full textBackground
The growing understanding of the oppressive inequities that exist in postsecondary education has led to an increasing need for culturally relevant pedagogy. Researchers have found evidence that beliefs about the nature of knowledge predict pedagogical practices. Culturally relevant pedagogy supports students in ways that leverage students’ own cultures through three tenets: academic success, cultural competence, and sociopolitical consciousness. If STEM practitioners believe that their disciplines are culture-free, they may not enact culturally relevant pedagogy in their courses. We investigated how and in what forms 40 faculty from mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology departments at Hispanic-Serving Institutions enacted culturally relevant pedagogy. We used the framework of practical rationality to understand how epistemological beliefs about the nature of their discipline combined with their institutional context impacted instructors’ decision to enact practices aligning with the three tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy.
Results
In total, 35 instructors reported using practices that aligned with the academic success tenet, nine instructors with the cultural competence tenet, and one instructor with the sociopolitical consciousness tenet. Instructors expressed and even lauded their disciplines’ separation from culture while simultaneously expressing instructional decisions that aligned with culturally relevant pedagogy. Though never asked directly, six instructors made statements reflecting a “culture-free” belief about knowledge in their discipline such as “To me, mathematics has no color.” Five of those instructors also described altering their teaching in ways that aligned with the academic success tenet. The framework of practical rationality helped explain how the instructors’ individual obligation (to the needs of individual students) and interpersonal obligation (to the social environment of the classroom) played a role in those decisions.
Conclusions
Instructors’ ability to express two contradictory views may indicate that professional development does not have to change an instructor’s epistemological beliefs about their discipline to convince them of the value of enacting culturally relevant pedagogy. We propose departmental changes that could enable instructors to decide to cultivate students’ cultural competence and sociopolitical consciousness. Our findings highlight the need for future research investigating the impacts of culturally relevant pedagogical content knowledge on students’ experiences.This article is published as Shultz, M., Nissen, J., Close, E. et al. The role of epistemological beliefs in STEM faculty’s decisions to use culturally relevant pedagogy at Hispanic-Serving Institutions. IJ STEM Ed 9, 32 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-022-00349-9. Posted with permission. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
A QuantCrit Investigation of Society’s Educational Debts Due to Racism and Sexism in Chemistry Student Learning
No full textThe American Chemical Society holds supporting diverse student populations engaging in chemistry as a core value. We analyzed chemical concept inventory scores from 4,612 students across 12 institutions to determine what inequities in content knowledge existed before and after introductory college chemistry courses. We interpreted our findings from a Quantitative Critical (QuantCrit) perspective that framed inequities as educational debts that society owed students due to racism, sexism, or both. Results showed that society owed women and Black men large educational debts before and after instruction. Society’s educational debts before instruction were large enough that women and Black men’s average scores were lower than White men’s average pretest scores even after instruction. Society would have to provide opportunities equivalent to taking the course up to two and a half times to repay the largest educational debts. These findings show the scale of the inequities in the science education systems and highlight the need for reallocating resources and opportunities throughout the K–16 education system to mitigate, prevent, and repay society’s educational debts from sexism and racism.This accepted article is published as Van Dusen, B., Nissen, J., Talbot, R., Huvard, H., Shultz, M. (2021). A QuantCrit investigation of society’s educational debts due to racism and sexism in chemistry student learning. Journal of Chemical Education. J. Chem. Educ. 2022, 99(1);25–34. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jchemed.1c00352. Posted with permission
The Role of Epistemological Beliefs in STEM Faculty's Decisions to Use Culturally Relevant Pedagogy at Hispanic-Serving Institutions
No full textBackground: The growing understanding of the oppressive inequities that exist in postsecondary education has led to an increasing need for culturally relevant pedagogy. Researchers have found evidence that beliefs about the nature of knowledge predict pedagogical practices. Culturally relevant pedagogy supports students in ways that leverage students’ own cultures through three tenets: academic success, cultural competence, and sociopolitical consciousness. If STEM practitioners believe that their disciplines are culture-free, they may not enact culturally relevant pedagogy in their courses. We investigated how and in what forms 40 faculty from mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology departments at Hispanic-Serving Institutions enacted culturally relevant pedagogy. We used the framework of practical rationality to understand how epistemological beliefs about the nature of their discipline combined with their institutional context impacted instructors’ decision to enact practices aligning with the three tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy.
Results: In total, 35 instructors reported using practices that aligned with the academic success tenet, nine instructors with the cultural competence tenet, and one instructor with the sociopolitical consciousness tenet. Instructors expressed and even lauded their disciplines’ separation from culture while simultaneously expressing instructional decisions that aligned with culturally relevant pedagogy. Though never asked directly, six instructors made statements reflecting a “culture-free” belief about knowledge in their discipline such as “To me, mathematics has no color.” Five of those instructors also described altering their teaching in ways that aligned with the academic success tenet. The framework of practical rationality helped explain how the instructors’ individual obligation (to the needs of individual students) and interpersonal obligation (to the social environment of the classroom) played a role in those decisions.
Conclusions: Instructors’ ability to express two contradictory views may indicate that professional development does not have to change an instructor’s epistemological beliefs about their discipline to convince them of the value of enacting culturally relevant pedagogy. We propose departmental changes that could enable instructors to decide to cultivate students’ cultural competence and sociopolitical consciousness. Our findings highlight the need for future research investigating the impacts of culturally relevant pedagogical content knowledge on students’ experiences.Physic
Understanding instructional capacity for high school geometry as a systemic problem through stakeholder interviews
No full textA QuantCrit investigation of society’s educational debts due to racism and sexism in chemistry student learning
No full text
The American Chemical Society holds supporting diverse student populations engaging in chemistry
as a core value. We analyzed chemical concept inventory scores from 4,612 students across 12
institutions to determine what inequities in content knowledge existed before and after introductory
college chemistry courses. We interpreted our findings from a Quantitative Critical (QuantCrit)
perspective that framed inequities as educational debts that society owed students due to racism,
sexism, or both. Results showed that society owed women and Black men large educational debts
before and after instruction. Society’s educational debts before instruction were large enough that
women and Black men’s average scores were lower than White men’s average pretest scores even after
instruction. Society would have to provide opportunities equivalent to taking the course up to two and
a half times to repay the largest educational debts. These findings show the scale of the inequities in
the science education systems and highlight the need for reallocating resources and opportunities
throughout the K-16 education system to mitigate, prevent, and repay society’s educational debts from
sexism and racism.
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