Bulletin of the American Physical Society
Conference on Equity for Discipline-Based Education Researchers in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences
Friday–Saturday, May 31–June 1 2019; Rutgers University, The State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, New Jersey
Session 2B: Roundtable Discussion B |
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Chair: Geraldine L. Cochran, Rutgers University Room: Richard Weeks Hall of Engineering 208 |
Saturday, June 1, 2019 12:00PM - 12:29PM |
2B.00001: Perceptions of the STEM Teaching Culture at an HBCU Zakiya Wilson-Kennedy, Oluwakemi Adio, Guoqing Tang, Margaret Kanipes, Eugene Kennedy, Goldie Byrd Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) provide a vital institutional context for investigating the impact of faculty development on improving undergraduate education, particularly in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, for underrepresented minority (URM) groups. Many studies have linked faculty development to improvements in undergraduate education. However, there has been very limited research focused on the development of faculty at HBCUs. This research project explores the question, ``How do HBCU faculty teaching productivity and perceptions of support for teaching evolve through active, peripheral, or non-participation in communities of practice?'' Using qualitative research methods, a sample of guiding questions are used to investigate the teaching environment, engagement in teaching innovation, the nature of collaboration, and participation in communities of practice. Accordingly, this presentation will disseminate faculty development and structures of support through communities of practice on an HBCU campus. We seek to explore intersectionality as a lens for investigating faculty perceptions of the STEM teaching culture within the HBCU context. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, June 1, 2019 12:29PM - 12:58PM |
2B.00002: Student reactions to equity curricular elements in an upper level E{\&}M course Gary White Our upper level electromagnetism (E{\&}M) course for undergraduate physics majors is conducted with the students often working in small groups with whiteboards, with frequent homework assignments, and weekly contributions to online discussions of course readings. Recently, I have invoked Emmy Noether's ideas about the profoundly deep connection between conservation laws and symmetry to tie together several of the middle chapters in the classic E{\&}M text by David Griffiths in what seems a natural way. Interestingly enough, Noether's theorems are not mentioned in Griffiths' text (nor are they mentioned in most physics texts), and this gives us a chance to pause and ask why it might be that this connection, which many believe to be one of the most important in all of physics, is still overlooked in most physics curricular sequences. (for example, see "Teaching symmetry in the introductory physics curriculum" by Christopher T. Hill, and Leon M. Lederman, The Physics Teacher 38, 348 (2000); View online: https://doi.org/10.1119/1.1321816). Students were subsequently asked to write responses to a variety of prompts, readings, videos, and statistics related to equity issues that were presented/made available. I plan to discuss my perceptions of their reactions to this material, and to the merits and demerits of approaching it in this way for these students. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, June 1, 2019 12:58PM - 1:27PM |
2B.00003: Exploring and addressing pre-service teachers' awareness of inequitable practices in science courses. Carolina Alvarado The preparation of future middle school science teacher requires the development of multiple types of knowledge required for teaching (PCK, KCT, KCS, etc.), and yet, discussion about access and equity is often addressed in a separate space, outside of the context of science education. This work explores students' awareness of inequitable practices in STEM education as well as their roles of action as future science educators within science education courses. The data is collected through multiple semesters in two different upper division courses explores students written engagement in the topic. The first course introduced an explicit conversation regarding access to science, underrepresented populations in STEM, and equitable practices. The second course engaged students in discussing science education research papers addressing intersectionality of race, gender, ethnicity, and language proficiency. We use the framework of colorblindness to assess students' writing pieces and identify how students are willing to engage in social justice discussion in a writing format during a science course. This qualitative study shows the need and opportunities to implementing explicit conversations of inequities within a science context. [Preview Abstract] |
Saturday, June 1, 2019 1:27PM - 1:57PM |
2B.00004: Equity Issues with Standardized Research-based Conceptual Learning Assessment Instruments (RBCLAIs) Rebecca Lindell Currently there exists over 100 RBCLAs throughout DBER. Few of these RBCLAs account for fairness of items between different populations of participants. Using Differential Item Functioning, my co-researchers and I identified unfair items on three common Physics RBCLAIs: Force Concept Inventory, Force and Motion Conceptual Evaluation and the Conceptual Survey of Electricity and Magnetism. Now that we have determined how to identify unfair questions, several equity issues involving these ``unfair'' questions and how they should be used/treated in the future have arisen. Specifically, should RBCLAI: be left as is with removal of unfair questions after collecting data, be rewritten to remove unfair questions, completely rewritten with fair items and finally should unfair questions be studied to identify fundamental differences between different populations. In this Round-table we will discuss these issues. [Preview Abstract] |
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