Workshop Handbook: Transforming the student learning experience in STEM courses through modules that connect fundamental knowledge with social issues

Lisa Lewis, Albion College; Kathryn Miller, Washington University in St. Louis; Gary Reiness, Lewis & Clark College; Jim Swartz, Grinnell College

Rationale

STEM educators have long been concerned that many students who enter college intending to major in STEM disciplines change their majors after taking introductory courses. Recent research indicates that students are more likely to persist when they understand the ways that their scientific knowledge can be applied to solving relevant problems, such as inadequate food supplies, climate change, or disease. Learning early that science is not just a collection of facts and theories but involves dealing with complex, non-linear problem solving, uncertainty, ambiguity, and human values will not only help students become better scientists but be valuable in their civic and personal lives. In addition research shows that students learn and retain scientific knowledge better when the can see how it applies to issues of relevance to their lives. Because students often make a decision about their major after taking an introductory course, it is important that these courses emphasize the connections between science and its application to issues that appeal to the students.

There are good curated and reviewed collections of resources that embed fundamental scientific knowledge in social scenarios to help students make these connections, but they are not often used in standard introductory STEM courses. Faculty members can benefit from assistance in identifying and implementing these resources and in recognizing their value in motivating and improving student learning. This approach will be more valuable if implemented across a range of STEM courses that students will encounter, rather than in a single course or STEM department. Therefore, achieving this goal will require institutions to provide support. This workshop is designed to achieve two outcomes to meet these needs–enabling teams of participants to find and adapt or to develop socially relevant modules using humanistic and meta knowledge to teach fundamental scientific knowledge in introductory STEM courses and developing their skills to build institutional buy-in and support for this approach.

Philosophy

• Incorporate meta & humanistic knowledge along with foundational knowledge in science course work, especially at the introductory level where students are deciding whether to persist in STEM.
• Participation by teams to provide a collaborative and productive format and (potentially) a mutual local support network
• Encourage broad institutional implementation to encourage transformation of STEM education

Workshop Description 

In order to promote widespread implementation of socially-relevant modules, this workshop will train participants in adaptation and implementation of resources that link core foundational concepts with current issues and problems and provide information on the value of this approach to improve student learning and outcomes. Participants will be provided with examples of such approaches and with resources to support them in finding and adapting existing modules. We anticipate engaging dialog across the STEM disciplines and sharing resources such as curated teaching materials for content and for equity/inclusion or curated data illustrating success for integrated learning approaches and inclusive practices. A key element of the workshop is enabling faculty to advocate for and help facilitate broad implementation across STEM courses.

Context for use

We expect that the workshop will take different forms depending on context. The format emphasizes the collaboration of faculty in teams. These may include teams of faculty from different institutions gathering together virtually or in-person, a session at a professional meeting, or a local multidisciplinary workshop presented in support of an institution’s faculty professional development program. This workshop will facilitate institutional transformation in support of the integration of science and societal issues into introductory (and advanced) STEM courses. They will be provided with a workshop handbook/guidebook to assist them in this endeavor.

Workshop design and goals

Goals

1. The workshop will assist teams of faculty in identifying and adapting existing resources/modules that integrate foundational knowledge and social issues in the teaching of introductory (and advanced) STEM courses across programs, departments and institutions.
2. Participants will create an product that adapts and uses existing resources in a course.
3. Participants will be equipped and expected to implement the workshop at their home institution or in other contexts in order to disseminate the approach to other STEM faculty and promote large scale change across STEM teaching and learning.

Format

We anticipate that facilitators will identify the appropriate format for the participating group. This will be minimally a day long event, but would be tailored to the needs and availability of the group. A longer workshop will allow for a more polished module. This could be implemented as an online workshop over several days with 2-3 hr sessions that include both information delivery and active work time. Working sessions at which participant teams experience a module, develop modules as teams, plan for module implementation, and plan for dissemination of the workshop ideas will be included.

Sample agenda

Pre-workshop Assessment: See Appendix 3 for specific resources.

Collect information on participant background and interest.

Administer pre/post assessment questions.

Assign readings about value of embedding humanistic and meta knowledge in foundational STEM courses for student learning and retention.

Activity 1: Ice breaker and introductions – 45 minutes (depending on the group size and format)

Facilitator Notes: Use the collected background information to understand the context of the institution/group – who is in the room and what is their knowledge base regarding this type of curriculum development? How to connect with all participants at their current level of understanding and commitment?

Possible icebreaker activity: Brainstorm ideas for module focus, cluster similar ideas, and develop groups around the ideas with most resonance.

Activity 2: Experience a module – participants engage in a module as students would – 45 minutes

Facilitator Notes: A sample module on the Covid-19 pandemic will be included in the handbook but facilitators will be encouraged to use local, appropriate resources if they are available (e.g., in Michigan – Flint Water Crisis).

The resources will include multi-disciplinary activities (ballistics of a sneeze/cough, modeling of infection rates, molecular interaction of soap in destroying the membrane, cellular infection mechanism for Covid-19) and applications of scientific information in societal contexts (dilemmas of adopting appropriate policy that considers scientific knowledge and economic impact, etc.). The module content should intentionally provide for an emotional impact that illustrates the need and value for these types of modules.

An example module for use with participants is provided here:

Module on understanding why soap is effective at destroying the Covid-19 virus.pdf (Acrobat (PDF) 1.9MB Oct23 20)

Teacher Guide from CK-12 on Soap (Colloids and Polar Molecules) .pdf (Acrobat (PDF) 926kB Oct23 20)

Activity 2 Debrief: Deconstruct the activity and its impact – what happened, so what, now what? (i.e., what did (and didn’t) happen, why does it matter, what did we learn that we can apply to future situations?)

Plenary presentation: Why use this approach? – 15 minutes

Summary of evidence that this teaching in social context helps not only with teaching the meta and humanistic skills, but also with understanding the fundamental content as well. Evidence shows that embedding fundamental content in a social context aids retention of that content. Importance of affect and motivation in learning, including retention of members of groups traditionally underrepresented in STEM.

Activity 3: Reflection by participants on presentation (individual/personal and/or tailored to context/length) – 5 minutes

Plenary Presentation: Introduction to Collections of case studies or modules and other resources; don’t reinvent the wheel – 15 minutes

Activity 4: Teamwork on “module(s)” to implement: find, adopt, adapt – 45 minutes

Facilitator Notes: It will be important to provide time and/or a framework to assist teams in identifying a theme of focus prior to their looking for material to adopt/adapt. Teams can be encouraged to arrive with homework assignments that ask them to suggest a possible theme to work on but it will be important to allow time for each team to reflect on their proposal in light of what they learned in earlier sessions. Consider using a design thinking exercise: Brainstorm to come up with all the different social issues and fundamental STEM concepts they envision that could be used for a module. Determine where most interest lies and have participants search for existing resources. (This activity could occur between sessions of a multi-day or virtual workshop).

Reflection:  Group share and peer feedback of module topic and preliminary plan – 15 minutes

Activity 5: Engaging colleagues – 30 minutes

Facilitator notes: Group discussion on engaging others; time for learning how to build professional learning communities for mutual support.

Activity 6: Teamwork on Module: learning goals and assessments – 45 minutes

Facilitator notes: In this session, groups will define the learning goals and outcomes for the agreed upon topic/module and develop assessment ideas to evaluate achievement of those outcomes.

Reflection: Peer review of learning goals and assessments – 15 minutes

Facilitator notes: Participants will provide feedback on other group’s modules

Activity 7: Teamwork to develop a plan for bringing content of the workshop to additional courses, department /faculty group; develop action plan for institutional/departmental change – 45 minutes

Facilitator notes: The implementation of this activity will depend upon the context of the workshop. Participants may gain value from thinking about how to apply learning to other courses and/or how to work with departments and institutions to further application of this work.

Activity 8: Teamwork on module: details of module components and implementation – 45 minutes

Facilitator notes: groups will develop the activities and components of the module and generate a plan for implementation in a classroom setting.

Activity 9: Peer review of modules with rubric; reflection on feedback – 30 minutes

Facilitator notes: Participants will use a rubric to evaluate several other group’s modules. Groups will spend part of this time reviewing feedback and planning for incorporation of the feedback into their module.

Activity 10: Networking with others in the room who have similar topical/ interdisciplinary interest/ module – 30 minutes

Handbook Appendices

1. Background on student outcomes
2. Resource guide
3. Assessment of the workshop
4. Assessment of Student Learning from Implemented Products

Appendix 1. Background on student outcomes

The goal of this initiative is to prepare students to become STEM-savvy problem-solvers who can anticipate and solve complex, multifaceted STEM problems using foundational, meta and humanistic knowledge.

Developing the future substance of STEM Education: A Concept Paper

1. Foundational knowledge (to know). This is the core knowledge that is essential for students to know. There are three sub-categories to foundational knowledge: core content knowledge, digital literacy, and cross-disciplinary knowledge.

a. Core content knowledge. Core content knowledge and disciplined ways of thinking are characterized by highly complex and deeply ingrained mental processes specific to traditional domains, such as applying mathematical ways of thinking to solve everyday problems or applying scientific ways of thinking to understanding the natural world. Excellence in traditional academic domains such as English and mathematics are considered to be the foundations upon which other 21st century skills are to be developed.

b. Digital & information literacy. Digital and information literacy can be defined as the ability to effectively and thoughtfully evaluate, navigate and construct information using a range of digital technologies and thus to function fluently in a digital world. An important part of this is the ability to effectively seek out, organize and process information from a variety of media.

c. Cross-disciplinary knowledge. Cross-disciplinary knowledge is knowledge that integrates and synthesizes information from across fields or domains such as the application of knowledge to new contexts in the pursuit of specific end goals. Synthesis can be related to both constructing meaning (i.e. making sense of different domains and their relationships) and to the generation of new ideas (i.e. trans-disciplinary creativity).

2. Meta knowledge (to act). The skills, mindsets, and attitudes that address the process of working with foundational knowledge. Meta-knowledge is, in other contexts, have been called the “4-C’s”—Creativity, Communication, Collaboration and Critical Thinking. Meta-knowledge enables learners to interpret information, make informed decisions, create and design new possibilities, work in collaborative teams, and convey ideas through multiple modalities—essentially, to turn knowledge into action. The three sub-categories under this construct are: problem solving & critical thinking, communication & collaboration, and creativity & innovation.

a. Problem solving & critical thinking. Critical thinking involves the ability to interpret information and make informed decisions based on such information. Problem solving is conceptualized as the use of critical thinking skills towards the effective resolution of a specific problem or towards a specific end goal. It requires a comfort with ambiguity, a willingness experiment and test ideas before committing to a solution.

b. Communication & collaboration. Communication involves the ability to clearly articulate oneself through a range of media: oral, written, non-verbal, and digital; as well as the skills necessary to be an active and respectful listener to diverse audiences. Collaboration includes similar dimensions as communication, but also includes important individual contributions such as flexibility, willingness to participate, and recognition of group and individual efforts and success.

c. Creativity & innovation. Creativity and innovation involve applying a wide range of knowledge and skills in the generation of novel and worthwhile products (tangible or intangible) as well as the ability to evaluate, elaborate, and refine ideas and products within organizational and/or social contexts.

3. Humanistic Knowledge (to value). Humanistic knowledge include attributes that provide a learner with a vision and narrative of the self within social contexts, scaling from local to global. It includes life and job skills, cultural competence in a global context, as well as awareness of how the actions of the individual affects others and the ability to assess those actions against a set of broader humanistic standards. The three main sub-categories are: life / job skills / leadership, cultural competence, and ethical / emotional awareness.

a. Life skills, job skills & leadership. Life skills, job skills and leadership are those that serve to create lifelong learners, capable of success beyond the confines of the classroom including aspects of personal and professional leadership. Job and life skills serve to effectively manage and organize one’s efforts, those that serve to coordinate and organize relevant and important information, and those that serve in the development of end products (tangible and intangible) in the pursuit of specific solutions to relevant problems.

b. Cultural competence. Cultural competence also includes aspects of personal, interpersonal, and intercultural competence evidenced through effective communication and collaboration and appreciation of ideas and emotions of all types of individuals. Cultural competence, like ethical awareness, is essential for social and economic success as a result of increased cultural diversity from globalization.

c. Ethical & emotional awareness. Ethical awareness included the knowledge and skills necessary for success in a culturally diverse society, such as the ability to imagine oneself in someone else’s position and feel with that individual as well as the ability to engage in ethical decision making. It also includes the ability to intuit the feelings of others, as well as a deep understanding of human emotions and successful human interactions.

Appendix 2. Resource Guide

*Author’s Note: it will be very useful to have a way for participants in workshops to identify and suggest resource collections that would be helpful to others. Perhaps explore the use of crowd sourcing technology platforms to create a living, growing resource list and a mechanism for vetting and adding those suggestions to the guide.

1. Course and Program Level Resources: These include resources for course and program development that emphasize the inclusion of meta and humanistic knowledge in STEM curricula.

Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibilities SENCER . Example courses with links to assignments, activities, etc.

STEM Futures Resources: an NSF-sponsored workshop where participants engaged in designing solutions, designing programs, and designing powerful learning experiences that integrate humanistic and meta knowledge with foundational knowledge. Items from teams 2, 17, 22, 24 and 25 may be most useful for workshop participants.

Chemistry in Context: a textbook for teaching chemistry in the context of everyday life.

ChemConnections: a commercial text with modules that use social issues to teach core topics in introductory chemistry courses.

2. Pedagogical Electronic Resources: These include resources that emphasize learning objects and that do not necessarily emphasize meta and humanistic knowledge.

Course Source: a curated collection of course materials focused on biology and organized by sub-discipline or skill development.

IONiC ViPER: a virtual inorganic pedagogical electronic resource: a community for teachers and students of inorganic chemistry and a space for sharing and borrowing classroom activities.

MERLOT: curated online learning materials covering most disciplines but primarily focused on STEM.

HHMI Biointeractive: modules and activities for biology and earth science at the high school through early college levels.

National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science NCCSTS: an extensive curated collection of case studies and other activities covering virtually all STEM disciplines.

Science Education Resource Center SERC: A curated and index of general ideas, actual activities, laboratory work, etc. in a variety of disciplines and topics, including using social issues.

Appendix 3. Assessment of Workshop

These materials can be used by faculty who wish to implement thIs workshop on their campus or others.

Learning Outcomes

• Participants can articulate the value of using social issues/case studies, including improved student learning of core knowledge in introductory STEM courses.
• Participants will identify resources that are available to them and topics they will use to develop a module to implement in a course.
• Participants feel prepared to undertake implementation of a module or unit in a course that they teach.
• Participants will demonstrate the ability to assess student learning in the module.
• Participants are equipped to work with colleagues to implement broader adoption of this approach beyond the course that they themselves teach.

Assessing the Learning Outcomes and Impact of the Workshop on Participants 

1. Pre-workshop information gathering on participating faculty

These questions would help facilitators design the workshop to meet the needs of the specific context. They would focus on participant background and interest: discipline; experience level, attitudes toward evidence based and inclusive teaching practices, courses taught/target course for module, ideas for possible focus area

2. Pre-/Post-workshop assessment:

This pre-post evaluation is designed to evaluate the impact of the workshop on participants and provide formative feedback to facilitators. Each of the outcomes will be evaluated using Likert scales and/or narrative responses from participants to prompts like those below.

Example Questions: Likert scale questions with option for narrative comments

1. How aware are you of resources that you can use to implement social issues to teach fundamental knowledge in courses that you teach?
2. How well prepared are you to include the module using social issues in a course that you are teaching?
3. How prepared are you to assess student learning from your module?
4. How likely are you to implement socially relevant modules in your course(s)?
5. How prepared are you to discuss the use of this approach with your colleagues?
6. Do you plan discuss the use of this approach with your colleagues?
7. How likely are you to use the workshop materials to engage your colleagues?

3. Post Workshop Reflection and Evaluation

Example Narrative Questions

1. What is the value of employing meta and humanistic knowledge to teach fundamental knowledge in introductory STEM courses?
2. What steps will you take next week to move your plan forward?
3. What resources can you draw on to assist you in implementing your plan (e.g., teaching and learning center, colleagues)?

4. Rubric for evaluation of modules:

A rubric (to be developed) will be used to assess modules developed by participants for incorporation of learning outcomes/objectives, including incorporation of fundamental knowledge, meta and humanistic approaches, assessments of learning outcomes. This rubric will be used by the facilitators to help determine whether the learning objectives were achieved by the participants. The questions below are suggested as some basic elements that would be assessed by the rubric.

Participants will use this rubric to assess their own project and those of others during the workshop and/or asynchronously after the workshop (with reward?) to provide some accountability.

1. Does the module effectively engage a social issue while teaching fundamental knowledge appropriate for the course? What is the fundamental knowledge focus?
2. Does the module effectively introduce and develop the appropriate fundamental knowledge?
3. How does the module incorporate humanistic knowledge alongside fundamental knowledge?
4. How does the module incorporate meta knowledge alongside fundamental knowledge?
5. How does the module engage students in dealing with uncertainty, ambiguity, constraints, and non-linear problem solving?

5. Longer term Assessment

• How many faculty members/courses have had a module implemented?
• Of those implementations, what percentage were continued beyond the initial offering?
• What percentage of other faculty members in the department (other unit?) implemented a social context module?
• Does the institution express value in the efforts on this project? Are similar approaches being implemented in other departments (or programs)? Does the center for teaching and learning promote/support this approach?Does the institution express value in the efforts on this project?

Appendix 4. Assessment of Student Learning from Implemented Products

Student Learning Goals for the modules

• Students will be able to distinguish between factual knowledge and opinion or application of that knowledge.
• Students will understand the social and cultural context of the scientific topics addressed.
• Students will see the connections between fundamental knowledge in the discipline and social issues.
• Students learn to deal with uncertainty, ambiguity, constraints, and non-linear problem solving.
• Students learn scientific process skills.

This general framework can be used by faculty (who implement materials generated in this workshop) for assessing student learning in the context of meta and humanistic knowledge. Faculty members implementing the module are best placed to develop the assessments for fundamental knowledge.

Note: The resources used for developing the product may contain appropriate student learning assessment guidance and faculty are encouraged to review this.

Student-focused outcomes from the workshop products (e.g., ability to deal with ambiguity and complexity) might be somewhat like these:

Acting as a policy advisor on science, students can posit a question (like should this vaccine be approved?) and identify what things should be considered and who they need to talk to in order to provide policy advice or assessment.

Students suggest three (or another appropriate number of) social issues that might be used to incorporate humanistic and meta knowledge into topics covered by this course and note which topics they relate to.

References

Asai, D. (2020) Race Matters. Cell 181:754-757. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2020.03.044

Asai, D. (2020) Excluded. J. Microbiol. Biol. Educ. 21(2):1-2. https://doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.v21i1.2071

Brown, E.R., Thoman, D.B, Smith, J.L., and Diekman, A.B.Closing the Communal Gap: The Importance of Communal Affordances in Science Career Motivation J Appl Soc Psychol. 2015 Dec; 45(12): 662–673.

Brownell, J.E. and Swaner, L.E. Five High-Impact Practices: Research on Learning Outcomes, Completion, and Quality (Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2010); Assessing Underserved Student’s Engagement in High-Impact Practices LEAP Report lead by Ashley Finlay and Tia McNair 2013. [not specific to STEM or to social issues]

Chamany K (2006). Science and social justice: making the case for case studies. J Coll Sci Teach 36, 54–59.

Chamany K, Allen D, and Tanner KD (2008). Making biology learning relevant to students: integrating people, history, and context into college biology teaching. CBE Life Sci Educ 7, 267–278.

Gutwill-Wise, J. The impact of active and context-based learning in introductory chemistry courses: An early evaluation of the Modular approach. Journal of Chemical Education, 78(5), 684-690 (2001).

Priniski, S.J., Hecht, C.A., and Harackiewicz, J.M. Making Learning Personally Meaningful: A New Framework for Relevance Research J Exp Educ. 2018; 86(1):11-29.

Theobald, E.J., Crowe, A., HilleRisLambers, J., Wenderoth, M.P., and Freeman, S. Women learn more from local than global examples of the biological impacts of climate change. Front Ecol Environ 2015; 13(3): 132–137, doi:10.1890/140261

Thiry, H., Weston, T.J., Harper, R.P., Holland, D.G., Drake, B.M., Koch, A.K., Hunter, A-B.and Seymour, E. Talking about Leaving Revisited.  2019. Springer Verlag