Thanks for this question, Catherine (and Jomo).  One major structural challenge to BP is the practice of tracking.  Tracking, which is common in many high schools, is an inherently inequitable practice that the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, and others, recommend against (see "Catalyzing Change in High School Mathematics", NCTM, 2018; and "Responding to Educational Inequality", Haas Institute, 2017).  Socio-cultural and constructivist views of learning can address this challenge because each of these hold assumptions that all students can learn and language can be viewed as a tool for learning; even a resource, rather than an obstacle.  

Thanks, Catherine, for sharing the overview of this important work and for your questions. I was previously viewing the #ScienceToo video. While the context is different, there are likely some similar overarching strategies that apply to broadening participation in STEM at a system level. In particular it seems that we need to integrate values into the system, provide supports for those traditionally left out of science, and increase transparency and accountability for STEM institutions that explicitly or indirectly discriminate. I think most of what I have seen to date is around supports for individuals; it would be interesting to learn about others that are working to change the culture of STEM as a field through changing values of communities, or increase transparency and accountability.

Hi Jake!

Since you directed me to another video, I am going to follow suit in my response to you. I just watched the Traditional Knowledge + Modern Science video which spoke, in part, about this idea of changing values--including what type of knowledge we value (in this case, they were focusing on traditional ecological knowledge), and our understanding of who are scientists. There are connections between that project and the NSF projects, Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Teaching in Rural Areas Using Cultural Knowledge Systems and Culturally Responsive Indigenous Science: Connecting Land, Language, and Culture, with regard to engaging the local community in a process to expand the STEM education curriculum to include indigenous knowledge and practices. 

I hope others will add comments about efforts to change community values or increase transparency or accountability with the goal of supporting more equitable STEM education.

I was pleased to see and read about STEM Teaching in Rural Areas using Cultural Knowledge Systems. When we engage in conversations of broadening participation, learners and educators in rural and remote locales are often overlooked, yet over half of all school districts nationally are located in rural locales and they serve over 8.9 million students. While rural schools and communities are often surrounded by rich natural resources and community members with deep knowledge of these resources, these assets are sometimes overlooked. While many of these schools face critical STEM teacher shortages, when the historical and cultural assets of the rural space are considered, there are opportunities to build collaborative solutions, broaden participation, and enhance STEM learning and teaching. To read about some of EDC’s rural efforts to close STEM education opportunity gaps, see http://ltd.edc.org/closing-STEM-education-opportunity-gaps-rural

Thank you, Pam. NSF has funded a number of projects through the DRK-12 program that focus on rural populations. You can learn more about them here. One of those projects, the Synchronous Online Professional Development, has a video in this showcase.

Hi Jomo,

Thanks for the comment and the question. Here's one example of how bringing new theory to a challenge of broadening participation helped us to address that challenge. Working with teachers who are new to supporting English learners in their science classrooms, one of the most common strategies that we see teachers using are attempts to simplify the language being used in the classroom without simplifying the science ideas. As students move from elementary to secondary grades this approach becomes less and less effective because the concepts become more complex and abstract and no longer lend themselves to simplified and concrete language. We found new ideas to address this issue in Karl Maton's theory of semantic codes and semantic waving. This theory allowed us to develop new tools for teachers to help them "wave" back and forth between using the abstract and dense scientific language of secondary school texts and the more concrete and simplified examples needed to make sense of and build toward more abstract meaning making.

Thank you, Jomo, for the question, and Cory, for the great example!

Another challenge is the availability of teachers who are adequately prepared to both teach STEM content and engage students from all types of underrepresented groups in STEM learning that is meaningful to those students. One theoretical framework that researchers are using to address this challenge is CULTURALLY RELEVANT PEDAGOGY.  The theory argues that for students to be successful, the knowledge they bring into the classroom must be acknowledged, explored, and used. Here are a few NSF projects using the theory and related research questions that are being explored:

Relevant DRK-12 (or Other NSF) Projects

TACIB: Transforming Academic and Cultural Identity through Biliteracy (NSF #1321339) PI: Mark Ellis; co-PIs: Armando Martinez-Cruz, Sam Behseta, Natalie Tran, Michael Matsuda, Kirk Vandersall, Janet Yamagushi

TEACH MATH (NSF #1228034) PI: Julia Aguirre; co-PIs: Tonya Bartell, Corey Drake, Mary Foote, Amy McDuffie, Erin Turner

Student-Adaptive Pedagogy for Elementary Teachers: Promoting Multiplicative and Fractional Reasoning to Improve Students’ Preparedness for Middle School Mathematics (NSF #1503206) PI: Ron Tzur

Development and Empirical Recovery for a Learning Progression-based Assessment of the Function Concept (NSF #1621117) PI: Edith Graf; co-PIs: Robert Moses, Gregory Budzban, Peter van Rijn, Sarah Ohls Examples of Research

Related Research Questions Being Explored

How do preservice teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, dispositions, and practices related to integrating children’s mathematical thinking and children’s cultural, linguistic, and community-based funds of knowledge in mathematics instruction change as a result of a series of instructional modules for mathematics methods courses? How do local instructor, course, program, university, and community contexts mediate the implementation of these modules? What supports and challenges do preservice and early career teachers face in implementing instructional practices in their PreK–8 classrooms that integrate children’s mathematical thinking and children’s cultural, linguistic, and community-based funds of knowledge, and how do they negotiate these challenges? What are the relationships between early career teachers’ knowledge, beliefs, dispositions, and instructional practices and their PreK–8 students’ mathematics learning and dispositions? How can we enhance the ability of teachers to provide quality mathematics education?

 

 

Hi Cory,
I appreciate the video and your post! I just completed my first year in grad school, working with Dr. Carla Zembal-Saul in a national PD project (Science 20/20). I have been thinking deeply about Elementary STEM teachers and how experiences engaging with emergent bilingual families can help shift teaching practices and perspectives. I have had the privilege of working closely with two 2nd grade teachers who have shifted how they interact with families during open houses and family engagement events, moving from a passive role for both teachers and families, to more interactional roles, where children share the science investigations they have done in class with their families, and help their own families experience the STEM phenomenon. This positions students as experts, and allows family members to interact with teachers in more meaningful ways. In addition, we have recently begun inviting families in to share stories with the class as a small first step in building more meaningful relationships that can lead to a deeper understanding of funds of knowledge. I am hopeful this work can move into meaningful classroom interactions around STEM.

As a researcher and teacher educator, I have found it helpful to partner with teachers as collaborators, co-designing research questions and co-presenting our findings at a conference. The conference (an educational equity conference) also helped drive our work toward equitable instruction, and opened up discussions about asset perspectives, as well as the importance of language—for example, how referring to new immigrant Spanish-speaking students who are learning English as “emergent bilingual” to highlight the value of their home language knowledge. From this work, I am learning just how important it is to work WITH rather than AT teachers to make connections to families, and how it is important to consider relationship building with families as acts of building trust. Similar to friendships and other partnerships, building connections with families, particularly those who have been marginalized, requires time and patience. Many families have experienced microaggressions, have been positioned as obstacles, and their voices have been ignored. However, like you said, the positive experiences shift how teachers position these families and how their knowledge is leveraged in the classroom.

Camellia, great questions. I look forward to our presenters and guests responding. In the meantime, here are a few, initial thoughts garnered from project work and a brief that CADRE and DRK-12 awardees developed, Partnership Building as a Broadening Participation Strategy.

• Establish partnerships from the start in order to identify the needs and assets of each group. At the same time, remember that true collaboration takes time to develop and be willing to put in the time and energy required to build trust. Recognize the expertise of all stakeholders and use that to inform the direction of the project. 
• Represent the diversity of your target community on your project team.
• Build broadening participation into the proposal from the outset and make certain that adequate supports, including those needed to develop and maintain the partnerships necessary for the integrity of the work, are in place throughout each phase of the project.
• Ensure that there are structures and resources in place to enable partners to meet; understand the differences and areas of overlap between each partner's context, values, ways of working, motivations/incentives and barriers/limitations; and establish a common language for partnership communications and a plan for engagement.

Hi Camellia,

To add to what Catherine has offered, I've found the following chapter by Bill Penuel and colleagues to be very helpful in thinking about  building meaningful and lasting partnerships. The chapter highlights two different approaches/ metaphors for partnership building -- partnerships as a form of cultural exchange, and partnership as framing. 

Penuel, W. R., Coburn, C. E., & Gallagher, D. J. (2013). Negotiating Problems of Practice in Research-Practice Design Partnerships. Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, 112(2), 237-255.

Additional resources related to the chapter that Cory mentioned can be found at http://researchandpractice.org/, the website of the Research + Practice Collaboratory

Catherine and Corey mentioned research-practice partnerships as a powerful tool for the broadening participation and I agree wholeheartedly. As a Co-PI on the NSF funded Research and Practice Collaboratory that Catherine referenced, we were able to bring together mathematics teacher educators, teachers, district level administrators, researchers, and STEM experts to collaboratively identify problems of practice and test improvement efforts. In this effort we were able to leverage the deep craft knowledge of educators and expertise of researchers to initiate change and establish a culture of co-investigation. Through these equity-oriented engagements, teachers and partners were able to generate strategies to broaden participation and engagement for previously underserved learners. Students were able to become full participants and drivers of their learning as you can see in this video of students working together sharing and critiquing the work of their peers. See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMuk_EfDz7o#action=share These opportunities also broadened the teachers’ understanding and expectations for all learners in their mathematics classrooms. To learn more about the R+P work in Maine see http://interactivestem.org/

 

Thank you for sharing these insights from your research. As you note, students with disabilities are underrepresented in STEM, and some exciting research is underway to examine the instructional environment that might impact their participation and outcomes in K-12 STEM education. Considering accessibility from multiple perspectives is a key component for improving participation. I appreciate your reflection on the value of integrating principles of cognitive psychology into the examination of accessibility. Some exciting work is happening in assessments design, for example, that considers how to increase accessibility of the testing environment – broadly speaking – for students with disabilities. We are working to integrate cognitive models of learning (e.g., learning progressions and learning trajectories that represent students’ development of sophistication in thinking) as well as being careful to articulate cognitive models of performance (e.g., the cognitive processes and strategies that are elicited as students engage in problem solving). Examining the alignment between students’ elicited thinking and those that are hypothesized in the cognitive models can provide insights into how the testing environment impacts accessibility for students with disabilities.

Thank you for sharing these insights from your work.  I appreciate hearing about the details of your work and the ways in which cognitive models of learning might be integrated with models of performance.  I see that we have some commonalities in terms of progressions and trajectories and their implications for task design for students with disabilities (assessment on your end, intervention on my end).  I'd love to talk more about possible intersections and ways our respective projects might inform each other.

Hi Catherine,

This is a great resource, thank you for sharing!

We began with "how" questions around participation and engagement as opposed to using a ready made measure because we were interested in how students with diverse cognitions might participate and engage in the work.  So, we are currently examining how and to what extent students engaged with the tasks in our work, how and to what extent students employed the cognitive operations necessary to advance their conceptions of fractions within the tasks, and how and to what extent students participated in discussion with each other about their reasoning. So, this seems to align with participation and perhaps persistence.  I wonder about the link to engagement as well. 

Are there other ready made measures that you or others would recommend as valuable in these ways?

Thanks! 

Jessica,

An oldie but goody resource we developed, Compendium of Research Instruments for STEM Education PART 2: Measuring Students’ Content Knowledge, Reasoning Skills, and Psychological Attributes, contains information on instrument constructs/variables that are measured, the target audience of the instrument, the subject domains assessed, information on obtaining the instrument, and related documents about reliability and validity evidence when it could be located. I wonder if you would find anything relevant in there? By the way, there is also a compendium of research instruments for teacher practices, PCK and content knowledge.

 

Catherine

Thanks, Catherine- very much appreciated!

Terrell, thank you for joining this conversation. Regarding your comment about coordination and collaboration, I am interested in NSF’s INCLUDES  program since it is meant to provide an approach to broadening participation (at least in the workforce) based on scaling social innovations through collective impact, networked communities, and/or strategic partnerships. The American Institutes of Physics has a short article on the effort. Now that the program is several years old, a coordination hub has been funded to help (among other things) communicate the collective findings of the program and approaches to broadening participation that work. NSF generally does not provide long-term funding for initiatives, however. As we know, transforming systems and structures isn’t a small-scale or short-term endeavor; it requires multi-sector engagement and commitment.

We would love to hear more about your thoughts and opinions, and those of others, about changes needed to systems and structures, as well as examples of small scale efforts that are making a difference.

Thanks, Terrell, for raising this important, though frustrating, issue. Structures, including structural racism and structural marginalization in our society, are of course, persistent and resistant to change. We have a saying in my family, "When you know better, you do better." But I've always felt that this applies more to individuals than to organizations, where the same lessons often seem to be visible over and over with little substantive change resulting. I've come to believe that part of this challenge is that as scholars we tend to focus on the part of the system where we believe we have the needed expertise while tending to ignore (or at least feel that we aren't equipped to deal with) other key parts of the system. So, personally, as a teacher educator, I'm quite confident working with teachers but less so about working with school or district administrators. Thus, my research has tended not to deal with issues of leadership and I've gradually come to see the limits of what my work with teachers can accomplish without connecting to other parts of the system. I believe we need more projects that look to cut across the traditional divisions in educational research. 

Hi Breanne, Thanks for your two thoughtful questions! Of the numerous projects explicitly mentioned in our work, there are several that are clear about the role of the teacher and their engagement. The teachers were instrumental in the success of the project. For example, our project that is mentioned in the CADRE report, http://cadrek12.org/projects/school-structure-a..., included teacher surveys and interviews. In the surveys and interviews, we sought to better understand the relationships between and among the teachers and administrators, as a part of better understanding predictors of science achievement.

For your second question, I am sure there are numerous efforts and insights underway to reach the goals. I know there are ongoing efforts to better connect our research and subsequent newly-gained knowledge to the challenges of schools and STEM achievement. For example, we are starting to see how social justice leadership can inhibit or support achievement. We are in the beginning stages of this work, and we will keep pushing!

Betsy,

Thank you for watching the video and adding a comment! I love your idea of creating an open door, or even an open door process. I wonder: In what ways might the factors that constitute or contribute to an open door vary across individuals and groups? 

The idea of "open door"  has a long been the appeal yet also a drawback of technology.  Certainly inclusion needs discussion within a platform that has a title of "STEM-for-All" and the presenters have a fine model with the platform, yet how are the physical barriers to STEM extended?  

A comment arrived in our video area that asks about membership in a community of practice. That question continues my thoughts in this important area of innovation.  Stating that our project would be a "Community of Practice" rather than a required learning requirement opened that door in a physical sense.  Those in sparsely populated areas need a different construction to ensure equitable access. 

 The step beyond that construction is the piece that made the true difference.  How do we engage individuals into a broader vision of “community” with their own interests driving their involvement, yet within the “interests” of their districts to document steps to improve as a whole? 

 Members were encouraged to form cohorts and our “levels” included advancement to become continued researchers in STEM Education, showing their advancement through student evidence.

 I will continue the discussion specific to our membership and glad to have this discussion open!

Betsy,

You bring up several interesting topics: the affordances and limitations of technology with regard to accessibility, and approaches to equitable access and engagement for those in rural areas. In addition, I am wondering if you can say more about the piece that you say made the true difference:

"How do we engage individuals into a broader vision of “community” with their own interests driving their involvement, yet within the “interests” of their districts to document steps to improve as a whole?"

This is intriguing. 

RE: accessibility, here is a link to some NSF projects funded through the DRK-12 program that address accessibility issues (in these cases, often caused by or solved by technology). Did you see the video in this showcase for Synchronous Online Professional Learning Experiences for Middle Grades Mathematics Teachers in Rural Contexts ? And we haven’t spoken specifically about accessibility issues due to language. There are several DRK-12 projects in this showcase that address that topic, e.g., Designing PD for Math Educators of Students Who Are Els, Fostering Math Discussions among English Learners, and Preparing Science Teachers to Support English Learners.

Hi Betsy,

Thank you for your comment!  You bring up some interesting questions.  The first seemed like a comment on a perceived tension between being inclusive and being inviting (i.e. opening a door):

Viewing your video I thought more about the recent chase to be inclusive rather than to find a better way to create an  open  door.  Does it begin with in creating a diverse group of individuals or rather might it be by the type of invitation to share ideas on a topic through some recognized process that builds over time?

It feels like a chicken/egg issue.  The invitation to share ideas is predicated on the notion that the ideas might differ.  The diversity of voices in the room would then be reflected in the enrichment of the discussion, which should help all students' learning.  I agree that the type of invitation is important.

It's also important to actively encourage and facilitate participation from all students.  For example, Barbara Rogoff's work has shown some interesting ways that interactional practices can differ across student populations.  If we ignore these kinds of differences, it could inadvertently favor particular groups of students over others.  So, educators should pay attention to the ways that students are able, or not able, to participate in discussions equitably.  What seems like an open door to a teacher or a particular student might not be interpreted as such by the next student.  That's not anyone's fault, but we do what we can to ensure all children have access to the discussion and construction of knowledge.  

Thanks , Sal, for pointing to Barbara's video. It is really interesting work in so many ways. For one thing, it points to the importance of ensuring that our research community is composed of, and working in collaboration with, a diverse group of people who bring a variety of perspectives based on a broad range of experiences, and who are familiar with a variety of contexts. Sal, I think you mention this in this video clip when you say the conversation will get stale if we have all the same voices in the room. We need the diversity for research to advance.

Hi Tracey!

Thanks for watching our video and pointing out this important systems-level barrier to improving positive STEM outcomes for all students. I enjoyed hearing about your project and the approach your team is using to engage youth who are in non-traditional school settings. Identifying points in which the system is not serving all learners (e.g., daily bell schedules or routines), is a key step toward developing innovative approaches that may disrupt the existing structures. Re-examining organizational behaviors and/or structures that may inadvertently cause a barrier to broadening participation should be a priority for seeking solutions.

Tracy,

Good point. The most recent National Survey of Science & Mathematics Education (2018 NSSME+) reports that "in elementary schools, mathematics is taught on most or all school days in most classes, but science is taught on most or all school days in only 35 percent of grades 4-6 classes and 17 percent of grades K-3 classes. Further, the typical elementary class spends about 20 minutes per day on science instruction compared with 60 minutes on mathematics and 90 minutes on reading/language arts." The NSSME+ report includes a lot of other very interesting information as well. It's worth a read for anyone who hasn't yet seen it.

Hi Maria!  Yes.  Thank you for this comment.  Two things come to mind.  First, many students (for example, disproportionately more female STEM students) get counseled out of taking advanced mathematics courses.  Deficit views of students might motivate a discouraging comment from an authority (like a teacher or counselor).  Educators should be reflective about their engagements with students to promote equitable access.  The second thing is related to positioning theory.  It is important to consider how positioning (among students, but also between teachers and students) plays a role in student access to discussions, activities, and curricula.  

Such an interesting and rich discussion! One major push-out force affecting English Learners is the misconception that students need complex or complicated language before they can engage meaningfully in science. Instead, we know that students really develop language for doing STEM by...well, by doing STEM. If we position ELs as sense-makers and idea generators alongside their more experienced peers, and create situations in which they have opportunities to co-construct understanding, the desire to share and co-construct ideas serves as an engine driving language development for students. An added benefit is that we're able to listen in as students 'think out loud, and deepen and support both reasoning and language development. There are many open-access resources to assist with that here.

Thanks Rita for weighing in with this important point regarding broadening participation for English Learners and for sharing these resources. Here's a list of some of the practices that we are working with science and ESOL teachers to develop for supporting English learners' sense-making in (and beyond) science.

That's a great question and thank you for commenting.  Taking intellectual risks is difficult for many people.  This can be especially true in the study of mathematics because it's so fraught with suppositions about intelligence.  One thing that teachers can do is to cultivate a classroom culture that regularly makes use of "errors".  That is to say, by focusing on reasoning when developing concepts, rather than the minutiae or correctness of vocabulary, students will learn that their thinking is valued and contributes to learning.  It also helps to have participation structures that support discussions in a variety of formats.  For example, when students can think-pair-share before sharing in a whole class discussion, they have an opportunity to refine their comments.

Thanks for the suggestions! We are thinking about how some mathematics tasks we have developed might be used formatively in the future, and the think-pair-share approach could be very helpful.

Hi Edith,

 To address this issue of students sharing ideas in science, I present to students that when scientists are doing experiments and something goes "wrong", they call that data. It's data because all information (including inaccuracies) could lead to new discoveries, so nothing is thrown away. Science notebooks are one of the ideal ways to document these data. I am sure there are other examples in science, but wanted to contribute to the your example encouraging students to share their ideas.

Thank you, Malcolm, I think this is a very good approach. In mathematics, perhaps mathematics journals could play the role of science notebooks; I think this might work especially well for framing conjectures and mathematical modeling, both of which are iterative by nature. For example, a conjecture is posed, someone finds a counterexample, and the conjecture is refined--I could see how through this process students could both learn mathematics and come to think of it as an exploratory practice.

Math Journals have been studied and shown to have some success.  To make the most of it, I would encourage you to help teachers and students move beyond "procedural" explanations (where they might simply describe the steps they took in a procedure).  Prompting students for reasoning is a good way to move toward "conceptual" explanations, which could include rationales for why something might be true (citing definitions, properties, etc.) or why they made a particular decision (regarding procedure or representation).  Focusing on reasoning also supports students from non-dominant communities and ELs.  Good luck and thank you for your participation!

Dear Tami,

Thank you for watching our video and sharing your experiences. It is exciting to hear about the opportunities you and others in your district have cultivated for your students and teachers. I imagine that many people must have come together to design and curate these experiences, and that creating these opportunities took time, resources, and intentionality. I wonder how your district went about this process and if other districts would benefit from hearing about your experiences.

Tami,

It is wonderful to hear about a school that is effectively partnering with the community and integrating engineering education into the curriculum. We recently posted a spotlight on NSF-supported preK-12 grade engineering education research which includes several free and open access resources for the classroom. Maybe there would something of interest for your school system there.

 

Another person in this discussion asked about what it takes to build and maintain effective partnerships. It sounds like your system has some answers! I recently listened to this podcast about partnerships. According to the author of the related article, Ebony Bridwell-Mitchell, if you have partnerships you are more likely to continue to have them. That is good news for your district. On the other hand, states and districts may need to more proactively broker relationships for schools that do not have partnerships, but have resource needs.

Thank you so much for the resource site, Catherine! I will definitely look into it. 

Great. Again, congratulations on the good work in your district!!