To improve accessibility and inclusion in postsecondary STEM education, we propose implementing Universal Design for Learning (UDL) based practices to meet the needs of a variety of learners. The UDL is a design framework aimed at improving and optimizing teaching and learning for all people, regardless of their disability status. As part of a larger professional development project, interviews were conducted with members of a faculty learning community to discuss their instructional practices and to offer feedback regarding opportunities to remove barriers to access and participation. In this paper, we focus on an interview with a physics instructor and examine their beliefs about students with disabilities as evidenced by the disability-specific language used in the interview. This prompted a new perspective on professional development regarding accommodating students with disabilities that focuses on confronting ablest beliefs as a crucial component in promoting inclusion in STEM education.
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Physics instructors’ views about supporting learner variation: Modifying the Inclusive Teaching Strategies Inventory
Every person has abilities across a multidimensional spectrum; however, previous research has indicated that postsecondary faculty are unaware of how to support students with a broad range of abilities in their courses and receive little training about inclusive teaching strategies. On average, STEM faculty have demonstrated more negative views toward students with disabilities than instructors from other disciplines. As such, we want to better understand physics instructors' beliefs about people with disabilities and their inclusive teaching practices. The Inclusive Teaching Strategies Inventory (ITSI) was developed to measure postsecondary instructors' beliefs and practices related to disability and supporting people with disabilities across disciplines. Through a pilot administration of this survey, we found that STEM faculty experienced difficulties in responding to the survey. Thus, we modified the ITSI for use with STEM faculty. We present our modification process, describe specific modifications made to the ITSI, and discuss preliminary interview and survey data.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1750515
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10145519
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 2019 Physics Education Research Conference
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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null (Ed.)Previous research indicated that physics instructors receive little training about supporting people with disabilities, physics curricular materials are not designed to support students with disabilities, and STEM professionals hold more negative views about people with disabilities than their peers in other academic disciplines. We argue that if physics mentors do not know about disability and physics careers, then they will be less likely to appropriately mentor students with disabilities. The purpose of this paper is to introduce, discuss the development of, and present pilot study findings for the Disability and Physics Careers Survey (DPCS), which measures practicing physicists' knowledge about disability and beliefs about the viability of physics career for people with a range of abilities. We collected pilot data at 9 meetings and through a physics listserv; overall 208 participants completed the DPCS. We found that practicing physicists have knowledge about hearing, visual, and emotional/mental health impairments (but not other impairments) and believe the viability of physics careers varies by impairment type.more » « less
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Abstract Background The growing understanding of the oppressive inequities that exist in postsecondary education has led to an increasing need for culturally relevant pedagogy. Researchers have found evidence that beliefs about the nature of knowledge predict pedagogical practices. Culturally relevant pedagogy supports students in ways that leverage students’ own cultures through three tenets: academic success, cultural competence, and sociopolitical consciousness. If STEM practitioners believe that their disciplines are culture-free, they may not enact culturally relevant pedagogy in their courses. We investigated how and in what forms 40 faculty from mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology departments at Hispanic-Serving Institutions enacted culturally relevant pedagogy. We used the framework of practical rationality to understand how epistemological beliefs about the nature of their discipline combined with their institutional context impacted instructors’ decision to enact practices aligning with the three tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy. Results In total, 35 instructors reported using practices that aligned with the academic success tenet, nine instructors with the cultural competence tenet, and one instructor with the sociopolitical consciousness tenet. Instructors expressed and even lauded their disciplines’ separation from culture while simultaneously expressing instructional decisions that aligned with culturally relevant pedagogy. Though never asked directly, six instructors made statements reflecting a “culture-free” belief about knowledge in their discipline such as “To me, mathematics has no color.” Five of those instructors also described altering their teaching in ways that aligned with the academic success tenet. The framework of practical rationality helped explain how the instructors’ individual obligation (to the needs of individual students) and interpersonal obligation (to the social environment of the classroom) played a role in those decisions. Conclusions Instructors’ ability to express two contradictory views may indicate that professional development does not have to change an instructor’s epistemological beliefs about their discipline to convince them of the value of enacting culturally relevant pedagogy. We propose departmental changes that could enable instructors to decide to cultivate students’ cultural competence and sociopolitical consciousness. Our findings highlight the need for future research investigating the impacts of culturally relevant pedagogical content knowledge on students’ experiences.more » « less
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null (Ed.)Abstract Students are more likely to learn in college science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) classrooms when instructors use teacher discourse moves (TDMs) that encourage student engagement and learning. However, although teaching practices are well studied, TDMs are not well understood in college STEM classrooms. In STEM courses at a minority-serving institution (MSI; n = 74), we used two classroom observation protocols to investigate teaching practices and TDMs across disciplines, instructor types, years of teaching experience, and class size. We found that instructors guide students in active learning activities, but they use authoritative discourse approaches. In addition, chemistry instructors presented more than biology instructors. Also, teaching faculty had relatively high dialogic, interactive discourse, and neither years of faculty teaching experience nor class size had an impact on teaching practices or TDMs. Our results have implications for targeted teaching professional development efforts across instructor and course characteristics to improve STEM education at MSIs.more » « less
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1119/perc.2019.pr.Scanlon
