2021 Inclusive Teaching  Symposium

Friday, December 3, 2021
4:00PM - 6:00PM ET
Free Online Event

Presentations for the 2nd Annual NABT Inclusive Teaching Symposium were accepted through a double-blind peer-review process that was open to biology educators and researchers at all levels.

We extend a special thank you to our reviewers for their time and detailed feedback.

A recording of the symposium will be made available after the event.

2021 Presentations

A Radical View of Teaching: The Pedagogy of Empathy and Inclusion

Miriam Segura-Totten, University of North Georgia, Dahlonega, GA

ABSTRACT: The Covid-19 pandemic and the switch to emergency remote teaching brought to light many of the inequities that have existed for decades in higher education. This talk will: 1) explore why it is important to reframe our teaching in the context of empathy and inclusion, and 2) discuss ways to increase access within our courses for students with attributes that might disadvantage them in the traditional classroom (e.g., neurodiversity, racial diversity, emotional and language differences). The speaker will share examples of how she has addressed issues of equity in her classes through a lens of empathy.

Investigating the Impacts of Engaging Undergraduates as Developers of Inclusive Curriculum through a Service-learning Course

Maurina Aranda, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, Edwardsville, IL;  Jeffrey Schinske, Foothill College, Los Altos Hills, CA; Laura Burrus, Blake Riggs, and Kimberly Tanner, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA

ABSTRACT: Scientist Spotlights – curricular materials that employ the personal and professional stories of scientists from diverse backgrounds – have previously been shown to positively influence undergraduate students’ relatability to and perceptions of scientists. We hypothesized that engaging students in authoring Scientist Spotlights might produce curricular materials of similar impact, as well as provide a mechanism for student involvement as partners in science education reform. To test this idea and investigate the impact of student-authored Scientist Spotlights, we developed a service-learning course in which teams of biology students partnered with an instructor to develop and implement Scientist Spotlights in a biology course. Results revealed that exposure to 3 or 4 student-authored Scientist Spotlights significantly shifted peers’ perceptions of scientists in all partner courses. Interestingly, student-authored Spotlights shifted peers’ relatability to scientists similarly among both white students and students of color. Further, student authors themselves showed increases in their relatability to scientists. Finally, a department-wide survey demonstrated significant differences in students’ perceptions of scientist representation between courses with and without student-authored Spotlights. Results suggest that engaging students as authors of inclusive curricular materials and partners in reform is a promising approach to promoting inclusion and addressing representation in science.

Culturally Responsive Positioning: Breaking Down What It Means to Be a Culturally Responsive Science Teacher

Uchenna Emenaha, University of Texas, San Antonio, TX

ABSTRACT: Positionality considers many facets of an educator’s experiences, such as their past, expertise, and beliefs (Teo, 2015). The aspects that make up teacher positionality are essential in understanding why teachers make the curriculum decisions they make and the important components to make shifts in limiting ideologies towards the advancement of science curriculum. The linguistic and ethnic diversity of American classrooms has shown a marked increase over the past few decades; however, the population of the teaching force particularly in the science and math courses does not mirror the diversity of the student population. This disconnect can pose challenges for teachers making it crucial that science educators understand their own positionality to build cultural connections with their students. The teaching of culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP) has been shown to be an effective way to increase student interest as well as support educators in closing cultural gaps that might impede learning (Ladson-Billings, 1995). The development of one’s own critical consciousness is an important step in positioning oneself as a culturally responsive science educator. This session will break down the components of CRP, expound on how CRP can be used in science instruction, as well as share reflective and introspective teaching practices towards the development of a more culturally responsive teaching positionality. 

Using Inclusive Methods and Case Studies to Address Quantitative Skills

Sheela Vemu, Waubonsee Community College, Sugar Grove, IL and Tara Jo Holmberg, Northwestern Connecticut Community College, Winsted, CT

ABSTRACT: In addressing the national attrition trend in STEM for many populations, many mitigation strategies have been proposed. One critical piece is the inclusion of voices from those groups that have been traditionally left out of the STEM conversation, either implicitly or explicitly, including many of our students. The BioSkills Guide forms a framework for including some of those voices through inclusive practices with other core competencies, such as quantitative skills development. This initial study will describe the use of diversity, equity, and inclusive practices with metacognition strategies and case study methodology to also improve quantitative skills development. Students did show gains in both affective and content learning. Overall course attrition was reduced, and overall grades increased, from spring 2018 (pre-treatment) to spring 2019 (treatment) in similar courses. Areas of challenge and related areas of biology education research will be identified, as well as recommendations to faculty looking to do similar work.

Investigating the Impacts of a Growth Mindset Intervention on Student Performance in a Human Anatomy course

Parker Stuart, University of Central Missouri, Warrensburg, MO

ABSTRACT: Student retention and persistence have become a focus nationally due to declining graduation rates. Both cognitive and non-cognitive factors influence graduation rates, with the focus now moving towards non-cognitive factors, such as motivation, instead of cognitive factors, such as intelligence. The theory of action model focuses on the relationships of noncognitive facts (Snipes et al., 2012). This model identifies three non-cognitive variables: academic mindset, which can influence how students perform and persist. Dweck’s (2008) notion of a growth mindset was incorporated into a semester-long intervention to gauge its impacts on student performance and persistence in a college Human Anatomy course. Results of the study indicate that students who participated in the intervention do change mindsets and show improvement on assessments compared with students who did not participate, but the persistence rates of participants were unchanged. These results are promising; however, additional sampling is needed to gauge the entire scope that the interventions have on persistence due to the low number of non-persisting participants.

On the Measurement of Equity in the Classroom - Approaches and Considerations

Bryan Dewsbury, Florida International University, Miami, FL

If equity approaches are to become truly integral to the higher education experience key performance indicators for its outcomes must be as expected a component of the classroom structure similar to the extent cognitive development is measured. In this talk, we will explore what it means to cultivate social development in a STEM classroom, and outline considerations for measuring its impact.