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

 

  • 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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Our Archive

 

  • 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…

    Learn More

  • 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 Advocating for Accessibility in the Field Builds a Culture of STEM Inclusion

    Active learning in field-focused science disciplines is widely recognized as highly transformative practice in the undergraduate curriculum. Giving students ea…

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  • How Disruption Allows Us to Reimagine Convergent STEM Ecosystems

    Learn how placing experiences and growth, rather than content delivery, at the center of activity can help you create an educational ecosystem that supports di…

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  • Designing for Difference: Conceptualizing and Planning for Variations in Learners’ Needs, Abilities, and Interests

    Let’s leverage this moment of disruption to correct the longstanding failure of academia to recognize and plan for the inherent variability in people’s needs, …

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  • Filling the Sieve and Wondering Why We’re Still Thirsty: A Call to Humanize the STEM Workplace for Educators and Students

    Many consider the landscape of undergraduate STEM to be characterized by high rates of work stress and inequity across identities of race, ethnicity, . . .

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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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  • Who Am I When the Little Things Add Up?

    My multiple identities impact how I show up in this world. They also guide the experiential framework of my approach to addressing diversity, equity, inclusion…

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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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  • Bringing the Field into the Classroom: Using Story Maps as an Inclusive Component of Virtual Field Experiences for Beginning Students

    Through story-mapping, students can address open-ended questions, critically evaluate existing information, and identify gaps in the current knowledge base.

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  • Building Inclusion in STEM Through Activation of Multicontext Theory

    Our journey begins with a story by co-author, Roberto Ibarra, and his discovery of a new paradigm for enhancing diversity as he analyzed his social science stu…

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  • Teaching Outside the Textbook: Integrating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion into the Science Classroom Using Real-World Experiences

    Introducing diverse perspectives in science courses help students progress from simply acquiring knowledge to questioning their own or other assumptions and ar…

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    The Disruptor LIVE: Reflections on One Year of Evidence-Based Strategies that Advance Equity

    How can we empower evidence-based systemic change that advances equity?

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  • How Storytelling Inspires Representation in STEM Communities

    How do we make sure all stakeholders have representation in STEM? Learn how storytelling helps us get there.

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  • Make Time Now for Cultural Inclusion and Healing

    Turning away from old biases and stereotypes requires that the stakeholders are able to devote time to become aware, interrupt the automatic responses, and for…

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  • Power of Partnerships

    Partnerships can help us address growing inequities in STEM education and offer strategies to optimize progress toward better STEM learning for all.

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  • How Collaborating Across Boundaries Fosters Community-Engaged Partnerships

    This model provides students with learning experiences that deepen their understanding of how both disciplinary knowledge and interdisciplinary collaboration c…

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  • Racial Equity in the STEM Math Pathway: Designing for Disproportionate Benefit

    We all need to redouble efforts to advance racial equity in the STEM math pathway on our campuses by intentionally designing for positive benefit.

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  • Patching Together a Plan for Student Success

    Let us explore where innovative learning environments are best used to make learning more accessible and education more flexible and equitable, complementing t…

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  • How Lightweight, Scalable, and Relational Learning Experiences Can Help Overcome System-Level Challenges in Education

    Can exploratory reading groups (ERGs) designed to be lightweight, scalable, and relational create system-level changes in education?

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  • Handing Rose-Colored Glasses to STEM Faculty: Institutional Priorities in Disciplinary Identity Development

    As educators, we are setting the rules. As scientists, we can draw on our skills and training to find and use tools that both broaden participation in the scie…

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  • Creating and Maintaining Communities to Support Faculty Implementing Effective Evidence-Based Strategies

    We need to support faculty so that they persist with research-based instructional strategies, learn new techniques, and engage in reflective practice.

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  • Leveraging Institutional Data to Advance Equity in STEM Courses

    If instructors and administrators are to understand where their efforts to advance student learning and equity are succeeding, they need to measure it.

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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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