Workshop, On-Demand Workshop

Implementable Classroom Skills and Techniques for Undergraduate STEM Instructors

Event Date: April 21, 2026 2:00pm-3:30pm

Speaker(s):
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Donna Pattison, Ph.D.
Instructional Professor and Associate Dean, Department of Biology and Biochemistry
University of Houston
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Heidi A. Diefes-Dux, Ph.D.
Professor of Engineering Education
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
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Christina Kimmerling
Education Doctoral Candidate
University of California, Irvine
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Patricia Fuentes Acevedo
Education Doctoral Candidate
University of California, Irvine

Recording and slides to be posted soon!

This workshop highlights innovative initiatives designed to strengthen undergraduate STEM education through collaborative networks, reflective learning practices, and professional development.

Dr. Donna Pattison will introduce the CRISPR in the Classroom Network – an effort crafted by faculty from eleven institutions to deliver hands-on workshops that help laboratory educators integrate CRISPR gene-editing technology into undergraduate courses. Dr. Pattison will discuss the network’s offerings, provide tactics for sustaining cross-institutional collaborations, and outline implementation plans.

Dr. Heidi Diefes-Dux will discuss how structured reflection can help students develop metacognitive regulation strategies that support effective self-regulated learning. Using examples of student reflections and classroom activities, Dr. Diefes-Dux will show how to incorporate reflection into existing coursework using metacognition theory-aligned prompts, rubrics, and -feedback.

Christina Kimmerling and Patricia Fuentes Acevedo will present a professional development initiative aimed at supporting responsive teaching in undergraduate mathematics. This program focuses primarily on educator noticing: one’s ability to attend to and reason about students’ mathematical thinking, and then use that reasoning to make instructional decisions. Kimmerling and Fuentes Acevedo will additionally show how to incorporate noticing into program design for college mathematics instructional teams. 

Speaker(s)

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Donna Pattison, Ph.D.
Instructional Professor and Associate Dean, Department of Biology and Biochemistry
University of Houston
Dr. Donna Pattison serves as Associate Dean for Curriculum, Instruction, and Career Development in the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics (NSM) at the University of Houston (UH). Dr. Pattison specializes in curriculum development and academic policies that impact degree completion. She works extensively in the area of faculty development, encouraging the use of high impact, high engagement teaching practices. Dr. Pattison also oversaw the launch of a new career center in NSM to educate students on career pathways and professionalism while also connecting them to internship and employment opportunities. She continues to work closely with the new career center to foster growth in both programming and corporate engagement. Dr. Pattison is an Instructional Professor in the Department of Biology and Biochemistry. Her primary research interest is in the development of student success programs to improve undergraduate retention and graduation rates. She leads the CRISPR in the Classroom network, training college laboratory instructors in the molecular basics of CRISPR-Cas 9 systems and its biotechnology applications in DNA editing so that the new methods can be integrated into the undergraduate curriculum. Dr. Pattison has been the recipient of a UH Teaching Excellence Award (2012), Group Teaching Excellence Award (2017), Provost’s Core Teaching Award (2019), and the Distinguished Leadership in Teaching Excellence Award (2024). She was also a recipient of the Houston Business Journal’s Women Who Mean Business Award (2024).
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Heidi A. Diefes-Dux, Ph.D.
Professor of Engineering Education
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Heidi A. Diefes-Dux is a Professor in Biological Systems Engineering at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln (UNL). She received her B.S. and M.S. in Food Science from Cornell University and her Ph.D. in Food Process Engineering from the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at Purdue University. She was an inaugural faculty member of the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. She now leads the Discipline-Based Education Research (DBER) Initiative in the College of Engineering at UNL and is the graduate chair for the PhD in Engineering - Specialization in Engineering Education Research program. Her research focuses on the development, implementation, and assessment of activities with authentic engineering contexts. She has been doing research on reflection in engineering courses for over 10 years and is the Principal Investigator for the IUSE project Enhancing Engineering Students’ Ability to Think Deeply about their Learning Through Formal and Continuous Reflection (NSF 2235227). To date, reflection has been implemented in courses from first- to senior-year in two engineering undergraduate degree programs with over 800 unique students.
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Christina Kimmerling
Education Doctoral Candidate
University of California, Irvine
Christina Kimmerling is a doctoral candidate in the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). Her research examines productive teacher learning opportunities around ambitious and equitable mathematics instruction. She began her career as a middle and high school mathematics teacher and instructional coach in Oregon and Colorado. She holds a B.A. in Applied Mathematics from UC Berkeley, an M.Ed. in Teaching and Curriculum from Harvard University, and an M.S. in Mathematics (Mathematics Education for Secondary Teachers) from California State University, Long Beach.
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Patricia Fuentes Acevedo
Education Doctoral Candidate
University of California, Irvine
Patricia Fuentes Acevedo is a Chilean mathematics teacher educator and Ph.D. candidate in the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). She holds a degree in Mathematics Teaching and a Master's degree in Didactics of Mathematics from the Universidad de Concepción, Chile, as well as a Master's degree in Education from UC Irvine. She taught mathematics in Middle school, High school, and in technical-professional programs. She then worked as a lecturer at the Faculty of Education of the Universidad de Concepcion, Chile, for three years. Patricia is committed to transforming mathematics education in underserved communities in the US and globally. Her research focuses on two interrelated strands: mathematics teacher noticing for equity and equitable collaborations for family mathematics. Patricia's research experience includes sustained participation in Research-Practice Partnerships with elementary schools in Southern California and serving as a graduate student researcher in an NSF-funded project with the Mathematics Department at UC Irvine.