The Disruptor

Promoting research on inclusive STEM ecosystems for faculty, students, and the greater undergraduate community. Below, you will find our latest blog entry and a complete archive of our posts. Enjoy!

Our Latest Blog

 

  • Advancing Physics Education Where Diversity Resides: The Organization for Physics at Two-Year Colleges (OPTYCs)

    Caption: Cohort 1 of the Creating Environments that Reach Every Student Program. Participants sort ideas during a brainstorming session. St. Louis, Jan. 2025.O…

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Our Archive

 

  • Advancing Physics Education Where Diversity Resides: The Organization for Physics at Two-Year Colleges (OPTYCs)

    Caption: Cohort 1 of the Creating Environments that Reach Every Student Program. Participants sort ideas during a brainstorming session. St. Louis, Jan. 2025.O…

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  • How a Professional Learning Program Turned Best Practices into Better Outcomes

    Improving learning in undergraduate STEM courses is a critical need to reduce high failure rates and broaden access to STEM careers. In particular, the Mathema…

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  • How to Use Virtual Platforms to Design Accessible Inquiry Projects for High-Enrollment Undergraduate Courses

    There is no time like the present to develop alternative, yet meaningful experiences that expose undergraduates to research. Mentored research is associated wi…

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  • An Invitation to Explore Alternative Design Features in Undergraduate Research Experiences

    Undergraduate research has long been a springboard for future scientists, but not all students can access these transformative opportunities. What if we reimag…

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  • Problems Associated with Interpreters Not Being Able to Fluently and Accurately Interpret STEM Content

    Additional Authors: Cristophorus Budidharma, Graduate Student, Lamar University; Ashley Greene, Assistant Professor, Gallaudet University; Sean Hauschildt, Ass…

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  • Training Teaching Assistants to Create a Positive Motivational Climate

    ProblemStudent recruitment and retention in Computer Science (CS) is a well-known challenge, and there are national efforts to increase participation in CS.1,1…

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  • Tackling Real-World Problems: Impacts, Observations, and Challenges after Seven Years of the Environment Corps

    Caption: Stormwater Corps students learn to read development site plans with Instructors Bruce Hyde and Mike Dietz.In the spring of 2016, faculty members from …

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  • A Place Where I Can Belong: Investment in a Learning Community for Community College Transfer Students in the Marine Geosciences

    Community college students are untapped human and research capital.

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  • Change Strategies and Tools to Support STEM Faculty’s Enactment of Equitable, Student-Centered Instruction

    (Caption: BETTER in STEM Cohort 1 Faculty at the Summer 2023 Workshop)IntroductionThere is a shortage of highly qualified STEM professionals in the United Stat…

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  • Creating Courses that Integrate Science and Culture: Facilitating Learning Across Three Knowledge Domains

    (Caption: Image from the Florentine Codex depicting the importance and knowledge of agriculture in 16th century Aztec culture.)In this blog, a historian of sci…

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  • Inclusive Learning with Embedded Digital Bioskills

    Embed Digital Bioskills as an Educational Approach to Unlock Inclusive Learning in Undergraduate EducationMany authentic data sets and tools are readily availa…

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  • Want More Women in Geoscience? Consider Their Math Attitudes

    Geoscience has made concerted efforts to increase the number of women entering and graduating from undergraduate geoscience programs, but despite these efforts…

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  • How Can We Make STEM An Inclusive Space for All?

    Throughout my entire career, I have lived at the intersections of race and gender, science, and society.

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  • Why Won’t STEM Faculty Just Adopt Evidence-Based Teaching Practices Already?: Exploring a Weaver’s Approach to Graduate Teacher Training

    Learn how to support future faculty in their knowledge of evidence-based teaching practices and provide them ongoing and multifaceted opportunities to explore …

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  • Preparing Non-traditional Learners as Next Generation Science Teachers

    Learn how Dr. Sharma designed a course that draws on adult learning theories and first-hand experience to teach non-traditional learners.

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  • How Food Can Be a Cultural Bridge to Enhance Student’s STEM Identity and Learning Outcomes

    Perhaps food is not peripheral to creating inclusive learning environments, but can be central to its formation.

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  • Dear STEM, It’s Time for Some Identity Work

    What identities are being built? What identities are (and/or ought) to be dismantled? What structures, traditions, philosophies, and/or practices necessitate d…

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  • How Engagement Enables Broadening STEM Participation

    We must embed STEM firmly in the cultural DNA of communities to truly realize the American Dream. I am an African American male . . .

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  • How Kindness is Part of an Excellent STEM Education

    In 2017 I set my fingers to the keyboard and, in collaboration with my colleagues, wrote a review article titled “The Influence of Affirming Kindness and Commu…

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