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Practice Brief 11 -- Topics:Equity Instruction Practices Culture
Implementing Meaningful STEM Education with Indigenous Students & Families

Teachers should focus on Indigenous ways of knowing & encourage Indigenous students to navigate between Indigenous & Western STEM.

District staff and PD providers should build relationships with Indigenous communities they serve and focus PD on Indigenous STEM, including relations to land.

School leaders need to recognize what it looks like for Indigenous students to learn western & Indigenous STEM and ensure approaches are adopted.

What is the Issue?

Indigenous ways of knowing are often perceived to be contrary to STEM learning, but they are in fact powerful resources for learning. STEM instruction should be made inclusive for Indigenous students by building connections between Indigenous and Western STEM. There are a set of strategies teachers can use to intentionally incorporate indigenous ways of knowing into STEM learning environments-both in and out of school and in relation to family and community.

Authors:

MARISSA SPANG & MEGAN BANG

Reflection Questions

How can you change your instruction to "center" it on Indigenous ways of knowing?

Who are partners (parents, teachers, systems leaders, students, organizations) that can help you center Indigenous ways of knowing? How can they help your students navigate multiple ways of knowing?

Where are some places you can take students to strengthen their connections to their territories and localize knowledge and learning?

Things to Consider

Center Indigenous Ways of Knowing: Make Indigenous ways of knowing central in instruction. One strategy is to draw upon the practice of observation of the natural world that is valued in many Indigenous communities, such as observing animals, plants, and weather patterns over time. These observations are often communicated through oral stories that have been accumulated and built over time and generations. Drawing explicitly upon the culturally valued practices of observation and storytelling-and their analogous NGSS practices of data collection and explanation- provide powerful pedagogical leverage points for STEM learning.

Localize Knowledge & Learning: STEM learning framed in local knowledge-in relation to local practices, and in land- and place-based ways-can enhance the relevance and meaning of STEM for Indigenous students and their communities. Many Indigenous students have responsibilities to their communities and territories (including human and non-human ancestors and future generations), so their learning and lives are often embedded in these responsibilities. Therefore, connecting STEM learning to Indigenous students' everyday lives, their territories, and sets of relations they have, can lead to more meaningful and engaging STEM experiences.

Facilitate Navigation Within & Across Multiple Epistemologies: When engaging Indigenous students in STEM learning, it is critical to explicitly recognize and encourage their border-crossing and navigation of Indigenous and Western ways of knowing as opposed to erasing one or the other or assimilating Indigenous students into Western ways of knowing. This approach first centers on and reinforces Indigenous students' ways of knowing, and secondly teaches them Western STEM. Bridging Indigenous and Western STEM-grounded in Indigenous students' everyday lives, communities, and territories-can lead to more productive STEM learning, expertise, and career trajectories for Indigenous students.

Attending to Equity

STEM learning for Indigenous students should involve offering them learning and knowing that is land- and place-based, centers (not erases or undermines) their ways of knowing, and builds connections between Indigenous and Western STEM. It also involves creating STEM learning that is relevant to their everyday lives and their interdependent roles and responsibilities that they have to their families and communities, now and in the future. Such learning experiences are more meaningful, relevant and culturallyappropriate.

Recommended Actions You Can Take

Take your class outside as much as possible and center learning on local flora, fauna, and phenomena--and to reinforce relationships to land. Read about this example and this study.

Regularly invite guest speakers to share Indigenous STEM and ways of knowing through storytelling.

Read about orienting to cultural ways of knowing in order to promote inclusive instruction--from the NRC Framework and from SACNAS.

Identify and partner with an out-of-school community-based organization to connect STEM learning in school and out of school.

ALSO SEE STEM TEACHING TOOLS

STEM Teaching Tools content copyright 2014-22 UW Institute for Science + Math Education. All rights reserved.
This site is primarily funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through Award #1920249 (previously through Awards #1238253 and #1854059). Opinions expressed are not those of any funding agency.

Work is licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported License. Others may adapt with attribution. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Opinions expressed are not those of any funding agency.

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Implementing Meaningful STEM Education with Indigenous Students & Families : StemTeachingTools (en-US)

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Practice Brief 11 -- Topics:Equity Instruction Practices Culture Teachers should focus on Indigenous ways of knowing & encourage Indigenous students to navigate between Indigenous & Western STEM. District staff and PD providers should build relationships with Indigenous communities they serve and focus PD on Indigenous STEM, including relations to land.

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My classroom community focus on partner talk this tool will be helpful when students are discussing Science concepts with peers.

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Practice Brief 6 -- Topics:InformalEd Instruction Equity
How Can I Get My Students to Learn Science by Productively Talking with Each Other?

Teachers should routinely support students in "sense-making" talk to help them work through their understanding while engaging in the science and engineering practices.

District staff and PD providers should provide models of productive talk in PD and as an integral part of enacting curriculum materials.

School leaders should observe productive science talk in classrooms and provide support to teachers as they develop talk facilitation skills.

What is the Issue?

Talking is integral to human learning. The science and engineering practices described in the NRC Framework for K-12 Science Education highlight that scientists and engineers routinely communicate through talk-not merely to share their final form products-but to make sense of their work and to gather feedback and refine their ideas as the work unfolds. Learners benefit from such accountable talk as well, but it can be tricky to scaffold and manage productive discourse in the classroom.

Authors:

RICH BACOLOR, TAMMY COOK-ENDRES, TIFFANY LEE & ANNIE ALLEN

Reflection Questions

What do you think productive classroom talk looks like? What is your role in supporting that talk at different phases of student investigations?

What explicit and implicit social norms are at play in your classroom, and how can you effectively shift these to support productive talk?

What cultural styles of talk and sensemaking are present in your community of students that you should make room for in science learning conversations?

Things to Consider

The science and engineering practices in the NRC Framework are deeply social and require that students communicate. They involve reasoning with others and seeking a shared understanding of science phenomena. The goals of productive talk include: (1) sharing and clarifying one's own thinking, (2) listening to one another, (3) deepening one's own reasoning, and (4) thinking together.

Talk makes student thinking explicit and public-so that it can be engaged with, interpreted, built upon, and refined. Student ideas can then become resources for learning.

I-R-E (initiation, response, evaluation) is the dominant discourse pattern of classroom interactions, and it needs to change. In order to engage students in science and engineering practices, they need access to and experience with discourse-rich sensemaking conversations. Breaking the I-R-E pattern and integrating productive talk may require practice, preteaching, and scripting student roles and language. (STEM Teaching Tools #35 and #48 may be helpful.)

Students should be supported to make sense of complex natural phenomena. Rich discourse among students should be encouraged through thoughtful lesson sequences and skilled facilitation that position them as collaborative constructors of knowledge.

"In order to process, make sense of, and learn from their ideas, observations, and experiences, students must talk about them... Talk forces students to think about and articulate their ideas. Talk can also provide an impetus for students to reflect on what they do-and do not-understand."

- Ready, Set, SCIENCE!

"We suggest that trying to present science [communication] in a culturally neutral way is like trying to paint a picture without taking a perspective."

- Doug Medin, psychologist

Attending to Equity

Recommended Actions You Can Take

Routinely focus instruction on student talk related to making sense of phenomena and their ideas. Read about making thinking visible through talk and argument, including how to establish classroom norms and use talk moves to cultivate learning conversations. Review the Talk Science Primer and use the Talk Move Checklist.

These classroom videos and supporting discourse primer highlight the use of different talk moves. Learn more about different approaches to managing classroom talk.

ALSO SEE STEM TEACHING TOOLS

STEM Teaching Tools content copyright 2014-19 UW Institute for Science + Math Education. All rights reserved.
This site is primarily funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through the Research + Practice Collaboratory (Award #1238253). Opinions expressed are not those of any funding agency.

Work is licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported License. Others may adapt with attribution. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Opinions expressed are not those of any funding agency.

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How Can I Get My Students to Learn Science by Productively Talking with Each Other? : StemTeachingTools (en-US)

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Practice Brief 6 -- Topics:InformalEd Instruction Equity Teachers should routinely support students in "sense-making" talk to help them work through their understanding while engaging in the science and engineering practices. District staff and PD providers should provide models of productive talk in PD and as an integral part of enacting curriculum materials.

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This tool is also good to connect content with the majority of the student population with are ELL learners and getting them engage with Science.

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Practice Brief 27 -- Topics:Equity Instruction Implementation ESPAÑOL Culture
Engaging English Learners in the Science and Engineering Practices

Teachers should know NGSS practices are heavily language-dependent-and teach accordingly to make experiences inclusive for multilingual students.

District staff and PD providers should learn about local approaches for supporting disciplinary language use with English Learners and help science teachers apply these.

School leaders should develop teachers' collective expertise to ensure approaches to developing language are coherent across subject matter instruction.

What is the Issue?

Authors:

KERRI WINGERT AND TIM PODKUL

Reflection Questions

Consider how science learning supports language development. Does language development also support science learning?

How can you remove the language barriers to accessing science in your setting? How can you support comprehension by connecting new content to the prior knowledge of students?

How can you build a community of learners that includes students with varied language skills?

Things to Consider

School science has a language all its own. Its vocabulary and sentence structure is complex-and aspects of argumentation and reasoning in science are different than in other disciplines. This can be troublesome for language learners if teachers do not make these differences apparent and explicit (e.g., compare and contrast argumentation in science and in other parts of students' lives).

Students often continue to think in their first languages for years after they begin to learn a second language. Help students build on their first language skills to gain deeper science understanding. For example, students can look up content online using their native language, or keep a bilingual vocabulary journal of new words.

Practice-linked instruction is a powerful motivator for engaging students. Students should be encouraged to investigate phenomena of interest whenever possible. After a large-group inquiry, the process can be reconstructed in written or verbal language-in developmentally appropriate ways and using scientific language.

The four language-intensive NGSS practices-Argumentation, Communication, Explanation, and Questioning-can be taught using language practices that are both receptive (listening and reading) and productive (speaking and writing). (See the list on the right.)

Language Practices in STEM Receptive Practices

Listening: Use a poster, slide, or picture to support student listening in science (e.g., the GLAD Pictorial Input Chart).

Reading: Preview science texts with students, discussing salient text features such as tables, graphs, and photographs before they read it. Provide summaries and include native language texts.

Productive Practices

Speaking: Provide sentence stems for all students to use, especially to support complex verbal practices like argumentation, explanation, and communication.

Writing: Engage ELs in authentic vocabulary exploration as they try to make their thoughts meaningful to others through writing. Provide dictionaries or Google Translate. Look beyond grammar and spelling to understand student ideas.

Attending to Equity

NGSS instruction is largely dependent on language, and it may inadvertently exclude English Learners from full participation if steps aren't taken. Multilingual students have important insights to contribute to learning, and scientific communities greatly benefit from the diversity of thought and experience these students bring.

Second language learners often have rich family and community practices and histories that can be leveraged to more deeply engage these students in STEM learning. Keep "big ideas" in science grounded in everyday examples that are accessible to all learners.

Recommended Actions You Can Take

ALSO SEE STEM TEACHING TOOLS

STEM Teaching Tools content copyright 2014-19 UW Institute for Science + Math Education. All rights reserved.
This site is primarily funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through the Research + Practice Collaboratory (Award #1238253). Opinions expressed are not those of any funding agency.

Work is licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported License. Others may adapt with attribution. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Opinions expressed are not those of any funding agency.

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Engaging English Learners in the Science and Engineering Practices : StemTeachingTools (en-US)

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Practice Brief 27 -- Topics:Equity Instruction Implementation ESPAÑOL Culture Teachers should know NGSS practices are heavily language-dependent-and teach accordingly to make experiences inclusive for multilingual students. District staff and PD providers should learn about local approaches for supporting disciplinary language use with English Learners and help science teachers apply these.

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This is a great tool to use since majority of the students are from indigenous decent. This will be great for students to connect to the content being learned.

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Practice Brief 10 -- Topics: Equity Background Culture

Teaching STEM In Ways that Respect and Build Upon Indigenous Peoples' Rights

Teachers should understand and leverage Indigenous students' ways of knowing and values.

District staff and PD providers should build relationships with Indigenous communities they serve and offer professional development on Indigenous STEM.

School leaders should learn to recognize what it looks like for Indigenous students to learn Western and Indigenous STEM and how to ensure a dual approach is adopted at system- and classroom-levels.

What Is The Issue?

Indigenous ways of knowing are sometimes thought to be in opposition to and detrimental to the learning of Western Science or STEM. Consequently, indigenous ways of knowing are rarely engaged to support learning. If STEM learning is to be meaningful and transformative for Indigenous youth, respecting Indigenous peoples rights and related critical issues, including Indigenous STEM, settler-colonialism, and decolonization, must be understood and explicitly addressed in Indigenous youths' informal and formal STEM learning experiences.

Authors:

MARISSA SPANG & MEGAN BANG - MARCH 2015

Reflection Questions

Do you teach Indigenous youth? How can you find out?

Some students and communities are wary of schools because they are places that historically and presently reflect racism. What are the implications for you?

Do you take up issues of settler-colonialism and decolonization in your instruction? Do you center and reinforce Indigenous youth's ways of knowing? If not, how do you think you can?

Things to Consider

Indigenous Sovereignty/Nationhood and Federal Trust Responsibility: In addition to their unique cultures, languages and territories, Indigenous peoples possess and exercise political sovereignty and nationhood. Consequently, Indigenous students possess dual- (or more) citizenship to their Indigenous Nation(s) and the U.S. Further, the U.S. has a legal trust responsibility with tribes to protect and uphold Native nations rights and resources, physical and cultural. Education is a significant part of trust responsibility.

The U.S. is a settler-colonial nation that has forcibly removed Indigenous people from their lands (e.g., to "reservations" and compulsory schooling), and exploited Indigenous peoples, plants, and animals for economic profit. Scientists have participated in this in various ways often not in the best interest of Native nations.

The UN Declaration of Indigenous Rights, passed in 2007, declares in Article 31 the right of Indigenous people to develop their cultural heritage, traditional knowledge...as well as the manifestations of their sciences, technologies, and cultures. The U.S. voted against this right in 2007 and was heavily criticized for failing to uphold trust responsibility. The U.S. became a declaration signatory in 2012.

Decolonization & Resurgence: Many Indigenous peoples seek to "decolonize." It can take many forms (e.g., eating only local foods, revitalizing Indigenous language). It is a call for the revitalization of Indigenous life ways and the return of Indigenous lands to Indigenous peoples. A notable approach is "everyday resurgence," where Indigenous people engage in the routine practices, values, and traditions of their communities since time immemorial and evolve new practices based in Indigenous values and ways of knowing.

Indigenous Ways of Knowing are multiple, diverse, and intersect with a host of Western disciplines. Indigenous Science is a broad term that reflects an inter-disciplinary sensibility reflecting Indigenous peoples knowledge and practices past and present..."[it is] a metaphor for a wide range of tribal processes of perceiving, thinking, acting and 'coming to know' that have evolved through human experience with the natural world. Native science is born of a lived and storied participation with the natural landscape" (Cajete).

Attending to Equity

STEM learning for Indigenous students involves the explicit recognition and teaching about settler-colonialism, decolonization, and resurgence as well as centering Indigenous ways of knowing and values. Attending to these aspects of Indigenous students' lives, identities, and learning will create meaningful and transformative STEM learning and experiences for them and their communities.

Recommended Actions You Can Take

Review: Implementing Meaningful STEM Ed with Indigenous Students & Families

Invite Indigenous elders, guest speakers and storytellers into your classroom and authentically partner with them to teach ongoing (not sporadic) Indigenous STEM and ways of knowing. Provide "everyday resurgence" opportunities for students.

Build meaningful relationships with your Indigenous students, their families, and their communities. Learn their ways of knowing directly from them, e.g., by attending community events.

Openly and regularly acknowledge on whose original Indigenous territory the learning is taking place, e.g., where the school is located. Engage all students in practicing the naming of places, plants, and processes according to students' Indigenous knowledge systems.

ALSO SEE STEM TEACHING TOOLS

STEM Teaching Tools content copyright 2014-22 UW Institute for Science + Math Education. All rights reserved.
This site is primarily funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) through Award #1920249 (previously through Awards #1238253 and #1854059). Opinions expressed are not those of any funding agency.

Work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported License. Others may adapt with attribution. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Opinions expressed are not those of any funding agency.

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Teaching STEM In Ways that Respect and Build Upon Indigenous Peoples' Rights : StemTeachingTools (en-US)

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Practice Brief 10 -- Topics: Equity Background Culture Teachers should understand and leverage Indigenous students' ways of knowing and values. District staff and PD providers should build relationships with Indigenous communities they serve and offer professional development on Indigenous STEM.

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Camino Nuevo Chater Academy (Burlington) 

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Camino Nuevo Chater Academy (Burlington) 

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School I see myself teaching

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Camino Nuevo Charter Academy (Burlington)

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Camino Nuevo Charter Academy (Burlington)

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This is my future school I want to teach

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Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps.

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In my Science Classroom a good Science Student tries their best. As long as they try to do their work and are curious to learn new things they will be successful in my classroom.

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Disrupting power and privilege within culture (2)

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Disrupting power and privilege within culture (2)

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Kenneth Gibbs, Monitoring Editor

Abstract

Recent research suggests that underrepresented minority (URM) college students, and especially first-generation URMs, may lose motivation to persist if they see science careers as unable to fulfill culturally relevant career goals. In the present study, we used a mixed-methods approach to explore patterns of motivation to pursue physical and life sciences across ethnic groups of freshman college students, as moderated by generational status. Results from a longitudinal survey ( N = 249) demonstrated that freshman URM students who enter with a greater belief that science can be used to help their communities identified as scientists more strongly over time, but only among first-generation college students. Analysis of the survey data were consistent with content analysis of 11 transcripts from simultaneously conducted focus groups ( N = 67); together, these studies reveal important differences in motivational characteristics both across and within ethnicity across educational generation status. First-generation URM students held the strongest prosocial values for pursuing a science major (e.g., giving back to the community). URM students broadly reported additional motivation to increase the status of their family (e.g., fulfilling aspirations for a better life). These findings demonstrate the importance of culturally connected career motives and for examining intersectional identities to understand science education choices and inform efforts to broaden participation.

Approximately 50% of entering college students intending to major in physical and life sciences never obtain a science degree ( National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2013 2014 Seymour and Hewitt, 1997 Cole and Espinoza, 2008 Bonilla, 2006 Williams and Dempsey, 2014 NCES, 2014 ). But what are the cultural barriers in science education, how do they take shape within science classrooms or curricula, and how can we create more inclusive environments that make science education more attractive and fulfilling for those who have been traditionally underrepresented? ). This can help explain why the attrition rate for URM students is higher than that of their peers ( ; ), and many URM students struggle to integrate their cultural identities with an emerging identity as a scientist (; ). These students often do not see themselves as fitting their perceived images of scientists () and subsequently can lose interest in and disengage from science, typically switching to majors and career paths they perceive as more congruent with their cultural orientations. Even outside the science classroom, students' negative racial experiences can predict lower adjustment to college for high-achieving URM students, amplifying the lack of belonging that many URM students face (; ; ). Negative racial experiences are not exclusively experienced by URM students, and students from all groups who report negative racial experiences early in their collegiate careers tend to report a lower sense of belonging, seeing themselves as less of a part of their campus communities relative to their peers (; ). However, in one sample, URM biomedical or behavioral science students who had such negative experiences early in their collegiate careers were shown to be more negatively impacted academically relative to their white or Asian peers (). Negative racial experiences persist beyond the undergraduate years as well. Black and Latino scientists report unique frustrations, including being confused for janitorial staff rather than recognized as members of their scientific community, an experience not reported by their white and Asian peers ( ). URM students report experiencing negative campus climates that can generate a conflict between their cultural identities and science learning environments ( ). Though tempting for policy makers, searching for a monolithic solution to broadening participation aims is misguided, because empirical research demonstrates that the reasons why people lose the motivation to pursue science education differ considerably across groups of students. For example, even among the most well-prepared and highly achieving students, those from underrepresented minority (URM; i.e., black, Latino, and American Indian) backgrounds experience unique cultural barriers in science education that can contribute to a loss of motivation to persist in science (; ,

One type of cultural barrier in science education results from negative competence stereotypes about one's group. Even if a student from a URM group does not directly experience overt discrimination, he or she is likely to face regular experiences with racial microaggressions (, 2009 Steele and Aronson, 1995 Steele, 1992 1997 )-which posits that the academic underperformance of underrepresented students can be partly explained by an anxiety caused by the fear that others' judgments of their actions will be perceived as confirming negative stereotypes about their group's intellectual ability-has documented this cultural barrier, explicated the processes that underlie it, and presented many solutions for how science education can lessen these effects. This work has become quite well-known and is now cited in virtually all national reports on broadening participation. , ; ), and feel uncertain about whether he or she can develop a sense of belonging in the science community (; ; ). A voluminous body of research driven by stereotype threat theory ( ), carry the burden of worrying that his or her performance will be judged through a stereotyped lens (

A second cultural barrier in science education, and the focus of our research, suggests that what makes science careers and science education attractive for students might differ across cultural backgrounds. A key consideration is the fit between the cultural values that exist (or are perceived to exist) within science and the culturally connected values of the groups who are traditionally underrepresented in science. In particular, prior research has illuminated the importance to URM students of altruistic or prosocial values of helping society or giving back to one's community. Whereas students from all backgrounds tend to highly value the traditional or stereotypical intrinsic reasons for pursuing science (e.g., curiosity, enjoyment of problem solving, passion for discovery), the career interests of URM students are also more likely to be influenced by prosocial cultural values than the career interests of their peers ( Johnson, 2002 Gibbs and Griffin, 2013 ; ). ; ). Specifically, the reasons why URM students pursue certain careers, or what they hope to gain from their careers, is culturally influenced by a career purpose orientation that highly values contributing to society and giving back to the community through one's work. This research suggests that, when URM students fail to see connections between this prosocial orientation and what they are learning about science (and science careers), they are likely to experience greater incongruity between their cultural and science identities (

What we know about the role of prosocial values in shaping the development of career interest among science students comes primarily from studies of successful scientists, who had completed their PhD and were reflecting back on the reasons why they chose their current academic or nonacademic career path, and from advanced undergraduates, who were deciding their futures with the benefit of experience collaborating with faculty in laboratory research. However, URM students' transition and adjustment to college is most sensitive to campus cultural dynamics during the early undergraduate period (). Thus, the current research examines how prosocial values shape the development of students' science identity and their interest in science careers just as they are beginning their undergraduate science education. Specifically, we examine how college freshmen's perceptions that science will allow them to meet goals of embodying prosocial values influences their development of science identity and career interest differently across cultural groups. This research contributes to a converging body of evidence emphasizing the importance of meeting prosocial goals to broadening participation in science education and careers.

THE CULTURAL IMPORTANCE OF PROSOCIAL GOALS IN SCIENCE

Students from all backgrounds value tasks and careers that afford opportunities to work with and/or help others ( Sansone and Morgan, 1992 Martin and Martin, 1985 Harper, 2005 Fryberg and Markus, 2007 Torres, 2009 Martin and Martin, 1985 Torres, 2009 ). ; ; ; ). Members of these cultural groups are more likely to emphasize participation in activities that benefit their ethnic community and making their community a priority ( ; ; ; ; ), but individuals from different cultural backgrounds place greater emphasis on these prosocial values than others. Previous research has documented the stronger prosocial orientation of ethnic minority groups that are underrepresented in science. For example, compared with white students, Latinos, African Americans, and American Indians place greater significance on the value of helping others through one's work, particularly giving back to one's community (

Several recent survey and interview studies with advanced students or those who recently completed a PhD highlight the importance of prosocial values for URMs' choices to persist in science education. Tran and colleagues (2011) found that working for the purpose of creating social change is more highly valued by URM undergraduate students than well-represented (WR; i.e., white and Asian) students, both inside and outside science education contexts. Further, among URM students originally in a science-related field, meeting prosocial goals was more highly valued among those who chose to leave science than those who stayed. Interview data with science graduate students expanded these findings to suggest that URM students pursuing PhD and master's degrees experience a cultural conflict with regard to the relevance of science to social issues and, thus, a divergence between their cultural and science identities. Among those URM graduate students who maintained integration between their cultural and science identities, redefining science for themselves with a focus on community and justice emerged as a successful strategy for persistence ().

A second set of surveys addressed to alumni from a program for URMs in biomedical science supported the importance of prosocial values in science career interest (). These alumni rated what would make a career as a PhD researcher in science appealing for students. The two most highly rated attributes for these URM alumni were 1) satisfaction and interest in doing science and 2) knowing that scientific knowledge they created would help members of their community. Further, among these alumni who left the research career path, several cited "a desire to help others in a more direct manner" as a reason why they chose an alternative career path (). These surveys highlight the retrospective importance of prosocial connections to the pursuit of science careers for URMs.

A third survey-here involving participants who had already obtained their PhDs in a biomedical field-investigated the role that personal values played in whether science PhD graduates chose academic versus nonacademic careers. Gibbs and Griffin (2013) Gibbs and Griffin, 2013 ). found that, across groups, interest in pursuing faculty careers was driven by whether or not life as an academic scientist matched personal values. Specifically, if what an aspiring scientist felt was important to him or her personally and professionally could be best achieved in an academic setting, he or she was more likely to pursue a faculty career. However, URMs with a PhD were significantly more likely than those from WR ethnic groups to report having been motivated by the value they placed on the application of research to health problems specific to their communities. Further, PhDs from underrepresented groups uniquely reported feeling a responsibility to serve as role models in academia to combat the lack of representation that subsequent students would see of people who shared their underrepresented identity. URM PhDs who felt that the nature of faculty work would not allow sufficient engagement with such values were more likely to choose nonacademic career paths. Whereas individuals across groups reported less motivation to pursue science academically when they felt their work would not allow for practical application, URMs were uniquely affected by the realization that science would not allow them to work to impact their own communities. Importantly, when respondents felt that their prosocial goals could best be met in a science career, they were more likely to pursue a faculty career, despite acknowledgment of the great structural challenges (e.g., difficult job markets, low grant-funding rates, or high faculty workloads) to having a successful career in the biomedical workforce. This research demonstrated that all the way through the process of obtaining a PhD, matching cultural values could be more important than differences in performance (i.e., number and average impact factor of publications), and negative experiences with mentors or structural challenges, in whether talented individuals chose to apply their skills outside their originally intended science domains (

In addition to these interview and retrospective self-report studies, recent findings from a prospective longitudinal study of advanced undergraduates support similar conclusions (). Specifically, the longitudinal study explored research career motivation among students who had already demonstrated the competence to be accepted by faculty members as student researchers in biomedical faculty laboratories. Here, URM students-but not white students-who perceived that science could afford their prosocial goals of helping others and giving back to the community reported being more involved in their lab activities and, subsequently, a greater interest in a science career over time (). This research provided prospective evidence that cultural differences helped shape which personal values were influential in the development of science interest in advanced undergraduates. Owing to the cultural differences in what people look for in a career, helping students see how a science career can fulfill prosocial goals may remove barriers along the pathways into science careers, particularly for those groups who are most underrepresented in science.

CONSIDERING IMPORTANT INTERSECTIONS BETWEEN SOCIAL IDENTITIES

Each of the previously described studies highlights the importance of prosocial values in science for URM students. Empirical work in sociology, psychology, and education, however, suggests that, when examining college experiences of URM students, it is important to consider whether students come from families in which a parent has completed college or whether they are the first to attend college. Students who are the first in their family to attend college (first generation, FG) face unique challenges, such as less access to preparation for college expectations, relative to students who have at least one parent who graduated from college (continuing generation, CG). Perhaps, in part due to those challenges, attrition of FG college students occurs at nearly twice the rate of CG students ( Chen, 2005 Harackiewicz and colleagues (2015) implemented classroom interventions for students taking introductory biology courses, asking the students to write essays about the personal relevance of their course material. While this exercise helped all students engage more deeply in their course work, this was especially true for FG-URM students. The intervention reduced achievement gaps for FG-URM students by 61% for the course (relative to CG students from WR backgrounds). To understand why the intervention boosted performance, the researchers conducted content analysis of the essays. Relative to a control condition, FG-URM students' essays about how the current science course was relevant to them personally contained more discussion of prosocial topics such as advising or encouraging others. FG-URM students were also significantly more likely to refer to their families. These data suggest that FG-URM science students may be especially oriented toward finding connections in their science course work that support their cultural values of helping their families and communities. ; ). This alarming pattern has inspired several recent interventions to empirically test ways to reduce achievement gaps between FG and CG students (e.g., ; ; ). However, a review of such research noted that social class and ethnicity were often confounded in the subject populations, such that URMs were disproportionately overrepresented among FG students, making it difficult to disentangle the effects of ethnicity and FG status on student motivation and achievement (). One exception examined FG status and ethnicity simultaneously, demonstrating that connecting students' personal values to science course work can be particularly helpful to FG-URM students, helping to close achievement gaps in undergraduate biology classroom performance.

OVERVIEW OF CURRENT STUDY

Previous empirical work has examined the relationship between perceptions of the ability to meet prosocial goals and science attrition for URMs from the advanced undergraduate stage through completion of the PhD. In the current study, we explore this relationship for first-semester college students-those who are just being introduced to science as a professional discipline. It is possible that those who are still just learning about the professional lives of scientists might not yet have formed an opinion on whether a career in science can meet prosocial goals. Alternatively, students may be more impacted by challenges to the notion that science can be used to meet prosocial goals before having concrete experiences in laboratories to develop their interest and motivation. A report from the U.S. Department of Education indicated that a failure to be engaged with rigorous and interesting science course work during one's freshman year is a greater predictor of a students' propensity to switch to another major than factors such as insufficient precollegiate preparation or overall academic performance ( NCES, 2014 ). This finding was particularly strong among the highest-achieving students, suggesting that attending to students' early collegiate experiences may also be critical to retain the most highly qualified students in science fields.

Prior research addresses the concerns of those who have extended training and, frequently, a vision for what a specific career choice would entail (e.g., applying a specific research question to people from a particular community or mentoring a younger student from a similar background). However, less is known about role of personal or cultural value congruency among students just entering college, when much of the science attrition occurs. The present study was designed to address this gap in our understanding by engaging college freshmen about the role of their personal and cultural values in the development of their science identities and career interests. Through longitudinal surveys and a series of focus groups, we examined the role that prosocial values play in students' development of a science identity and desire to pursue a career in science, with a specific focus on how the values that students hope to fulfill through science careers vary across ethnic identities. The present study asks: Does variability across students' perceptions of prosocial affordances in their initial college experiences predict greater science identity and interest in scientific careers? We test whether variability in early perceptions of prosocial affordances across physical and life sciences majors students within the first few weeks of college predicts end-of-semester science identity and career interest. We supplement this longitudinal survey with a qualitative examination of our freshman student population through a series of focus groups to gain a more nuanced understanding of URM students' initial perceptions of science, interest in science careers, and prosocial cultural orientations.

We predicted that URM students, and particularly FG-URMs, would develop stronger identities as scientists and greater interest in pursuing science research careers when they saw science as providing opportunities to meet their culturally connected prosocial goals, particularly benefiting their community (see ).

SURVEY PHASE

Methods

A longitudinal survey followed first-semester college freshmen planning to complete a science major across their first academic semester to test whether baseline perceptions that a science career would allow students to achieve their prosocial goals would predict their end-of-semester science identity and desire to pursue a career in science. This data collection was a part of broader study intended to identify the characteristics of URM students who persist in their science education. This broader survey administered several measures that are unrelated to the current research questions, including extensive demographic information (e.g., places of residence and upbringing, employment information, family size, and languages spoken) and surveys regarding students' social connections to scientists and science-related interactions with their family and friends. To answer the present research questions, we selected out only those variables with a priori theoretical connection to the role of cultural goals and barriers and one control variable that typically shows a strong empirical relationship with science career interest.

Participants

First-year college students majoring in science were recruited from a large 4-year public university in Southern California via email. The authors gained access to all members of the incoming freshman cohort with declared intentions to major in a field represented in the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. Potential participants received an email that advertised an opportunity to participate in a longitudinal study with the aim of "understanding and improving science education at the university." The response rate to the email was 45%.

Participants were 249 first-semester freshman undergraduate students (69% female; mean age = 18). Of these participants, 119 were classified as being from a URM group (82 Latinos, eight African Americans, four Pacific Islanders, one American Indian or Alaska Native, and 24 of mixed ethnicity including at least one of the URM groups), 70 were Asian, 40 were white, and 20 were of mixed ethnicity not including any of the URM groups. The participants included 116 students who classified themselves as FG college students (78 FG-URM; 63 Latinos, four African Americans, one Pacific Islander, and nine of mixed ethnicity including at least one of the URM groups). The ethnic diversity is representative of the population from which the sample was drawn, and due to the diverse nature of the university, no targeting of specific ethnic groups was necessary to obtain this demographic diversity.

Procedure

The analysis covered one academic semester. At time 1 (2-3 weeks into the Fall semester) all students completed an initial online survey that probed measures of beliefs about whether or not a career in science would afford (or fulfill) prosocial goals, a measure of how much students self-identified as scientists psychologically, and a measure of how interested the students were in having a career in science. Simple demographic information, including FG status and URM status (i.e., ethnicity) was also collected. The time 2 survey was administered 1 week after the conclusion of the semester (∼12 weeks later) and included the same measures as in time 1. Two hundred and seven (90 URM) of the initially recruited students participated in the time 2 survey.

Materials

For measuring beliefs about whether or not a career in science would afford meeting prosocial goals, participants received the prompt: " Different people feel like they get different things from their work. Below is a list of some of these things. Please read each one, then indicate the extent to which a career working in science is likely to fulfill these things for you." Participants were then asked to rate their agreement (possible responses to each scale ranged from "1: Not at all" to "7: Very much") with the expectation that a career in science will allow them to: 1) "Make a contribution to society," and 2) "Give me an opportunity to be directly helpful to others," 3) "Do work that is worthwhile to society," and 4) "Give back to my community" (α = 0.72; adapted from Johnson, 2002 ).

Participants completed a six-item scale measuring how strongly they identified with being a scientist (α = 0.88 at time 1, α = 0.91 at time 2; adapted from Chemers et al., 2011 Chemers et al., 2011 ). ). Participants were asked to what extent they agreed with items such as the following samples: "I have come to think of myself as a 'scientist,'" and "I feel like I belong in the field of science." Students' desire to pursue a career in science was measured by asking them to complete a two-item measure that included the questions: "Could you see yourself building a career as a scientist?," and "How committed are you to a career in science?" (α = 0.77 at time 1, α = 0.90 at time 2; adapted from

The survey also included a measure of students' performance expectations in science classes while entering college. Students reported their agreement with a single item: "I expect to do well in all of my science classes." This item was assessed as a covariate as described below (see Indirect Effects of Prosocial Affordance Perceptions on Career Interest via Science Identity).

Data Preparation and Analysis

We examined the correlations between early-semester (time 1) perceptions of science as affording students the ability to fulfill their prosocial goals and end-of-semester (time 2) science identity, while controlling for early-semester (time 1) science identity. By controlling for time 1, we test the hypothesis that initial perceptions of science as affording students the ability to fulfill their prosocial goals can predict the development of science identity at the earliest stages of students' careers. We conducted partial correlations separately for each of four groups of students: FG-URM, CG-URM, FG-WR, and CG-WR. The data patterns for WR students were similar across groups (i.e., white and Asian students); we therefore aggregated across those students for the analyses of this study (for more on why one should be cautious in assuming that white and Asian students will follow similar patterns, see Focus Group Phase below).

We then used the computational tool PROCESS ( Hayes, 2013 ) as an SPSS macro utility to estimate the indirect effects of prosocial affordances on career/graduate school interest via increased science identity for each group of students. The statistical model (PROCESS model 9) tests for moderated mediation, wherein science identity (at time 2) was predicted to mediate the effect of prosocial affordance (at time 1) on science career/graduate school interest (at time 2) for FG-URM students, but not for CG-URM, FG-WR, or CG-WR students. The analysis model provides complete regression results for predicting the mediator (time 2 science identity) and the outcome (time 2 science career interest), controlling for time 1 perceived competence, time 1 science identity, and time 1 science career interest. For our predictions, which focus on a single group among the four, the critical test is the test for mediation (indirect effect) that is provided separately for each group.

Results

Our theoretical model suggests that perceiving science as affording opportunities to fulfill culturally connected prosocial goals should increase science career interest for freshman FG-URM students, because it helps them develop a greater sense of identity as a scientist. This is consistent with previous research on advanced undergraduates participating in research labs, which found that perceived prosocial affordances of a career in science indirectly increased URM students' future science career interest through increased psychological engagement ( Thoman et al., 2015 ). Therefore, we next examined this mediation prediction using regression analyses with bootstrapped indirect effects.

Next, we tested the model again, this time controlling for students' performance expectations, because differences in performance expectations have been used to explain group-based differences in interest ( Lent et al., 1986 Lapan et al., 1996 Harackiewicz et al., 2000 ). Thus, it is important to demonstrate that effects of prosocial affordance perceptions are reliable above and beyond effects of performance expectations on motivation to persist in science. Controlling for performance expectations, the model still predicts a statistically significant amount of variance in science identity ( ). Further, early class performance expectations are correlated with actual performance (grades), interest in classes, and subsequent interest in the field ( ; R ² = 0.47, F(7, 185) = 20.68, p < 0.001) and career interest ( R ² = 0.62, F(4, 188) = 59.01, p < 0.001). Again, a significant positive indirect effect of prosocial affordance on science career interest through science identity was found only for FG-URMs (95% CI: 0.01-0.25), But not for any other group: CG-URMs, −0.14-0.24; FG-WRs, −0.13-0.24; and CG-WRs, −0.19-0.04.

Conclusion

These results indicate that, as early as freshman year, whether students see that science will allow them to fulfill prosocial goals can be more important for underrepresented students in science fields than for students who are traditionally well represented. As suggested by previous research ( Harackiewicz et al., 2015 Thoman et al., 2015 ). Rather, we argue that protecting such perceptions may be particularly important to FG-URM students at the beginning of their college careers. ), the intersections of social identities are important here as well. The moderating impact of ethnicity only held for FG college students. It is interesting to note that, while the correlation between the perceived prosocial affordances of science and science identity was not significant for CG-URM students, it trends in the same positive direction as for FG-URM students. Thus, it is important not to rule out the possibility that the perceived prosocial affordances of a science career can be important to all underrepresented students beyond the first semester of college, as has been found in previous research (e.g.,

While this provides evidence supporting the importance of considering both ethnicity and FG status when understanding student motivation and persistence, it provides a limited view into the different form that these motivations might take across groups. To better understand the different motivations expressed between cultural groups, we conducted focus groups with the ethnic groups with the largest populations on campus, including Latino, Asian, and white students (data collection and the survey study occurred simultaneously). In these focus groups, we probed students for the nuanced values that motivate their desire to pursue science.

Limitations

This survey is limited in that the data collection only spans the course of students' first semester of school. These data speak to the importance of being attentive to students' perceptions of the prosocial affordances of future science careers early in students' careers. However, further research is needed to determine how long throughout the course of students' academic careers such perceptions predict future career interest. The current study does not address these longer-term questions.

FOCUS GROUP PHASE

Participants

Using the recruitment methodology from our survey, freshman students were recruited based on sex and ethnicity characteristics to create homogeneous groups (e.g., Latina female group; Asian male group), as recommended by Morgan and Krueger (1998) . Sixty-seven students participated in 11 focus groups (56% female; mean age = 18.3). Of these 67 participants, 31 self-identified as Latino (46%), 23 as Asian (34%), and 13 as white (19%). The participants included 31 (46%) students who classified themselves as FG college students. However, homogeneous groups of FG and CG students were not created for each gender and ethnicity intersection, and as expected, ethnicity and generation status were not independent. Among the WR groups, most identified as CG. Ten out of 13 white students identified as CG, and 16 out of 23 Asian students identified as CG. In contrast, among Latinos, most (21 out of 31) identified as FG. In exploring the contrasts between FG and CG students, we focused only on Latino students, for two reasons. First, only this group had large enough sample sizes of FG (21) and CG (10) students to draw meaningful comparisons. Second, in the survey data, the effect of prosocial affordances was found to predict future motivation and interest only for FG-URMs, and we were most interested in comparisons between FG-URMs and CG-URMs.

Procedure

Following participant sign-ins and introductions, the study purpose was described at the beginning of each focus group. Informed consent and confidentiality regarding the discussion and deidentification of data in the audio recording was explained in detail. Participants were compensated with a $50 gift card immediately following the consent procedure. At the end of each focus group, participants completed a demographic questionnaire and were thanked for their participation.

Each focus group was moderated by an experienced PhD trained as a qualitative researcher (Latino/bilingual-bicultural) and a graduate student (Latino/bilingual-bicultural) using guidelines proposed by Morgan and Krueger (1998) Glaser, 1965 ). . Diagrams of the seating arrangements and notes were taken for each focus group by the graduate student comoderator with some note-taking assistance from other graduate student team members (one white female and one Latino male). The semistructured interview guide contained open-ended questions pertaining to science interest, precollege preparation, familial and cultural influences, and degree and career aspirations. Each group lasted ∼90 min. The number of focus groups was determined by the saturation of data (e.g., data replication and redundancy in participant responses to main research questions). Constant comparative methods were used to determine saturation (

Data Preparation and Analysis

Following transcription, the audio recordings were reviewed by the moderators (G.G. and I.L.) to ensure accuracy of transcription. Following procedures outlined for conventional and directed content analysis ( Hsieh and Shannon, 2005 Hsieh and Shannon, 2005 International, 2014 Charmaz, 2004 ). This process consisted of both searching for the presence and absence (i.e., negative cases) of key themes/concepts. ) for coding and analysis (i.e., identifying key themes, patterns, ideas, and concepts within the text data). The coding was checked by I.L. to ensure that the code definitions were consistently applied across the transcripts and then categorized. Categorizing consists of a researcher selecting certain codes as having significance in explaining events or processes in the data ( ). The initial codes ("themes" or "ideas" in the text) were developed through debriefings and ongoing conversations about the data and while studying the data and literature. Then the codes were revised in meetings aimed specifically at developing codes across the 11 focus group transcripts. The refinement of codes helped to test developing themes within and across focus groups of different students and to record a wider range of the students' experiences in studying science. The transcripts were imported into NVivo qualitative data analysis software (QSR ), G.G. and I.L. analyzed the transcripts. Content analysis is a qualitative research method used to interpret meaning from the content of text data through the systematic process of coding and identifying themes or patterns (

Results

A content analysis of the transcripts revealed several themes. For the purposes of this mixed-methods paper, a theme focused on students' sociocultural influences on their educational and career pursuits (with three subthemes) was selected due to the overlap with the survey findings. These subthemes are 1) role of cultural background, 2) broader prosocial goals, and 3) family-specific prosocial goals. While most subthemes came up in all of the focus groups (i.e., subtheme 1 was present in 73% of focus groups, subtheme 2 was present in 100% of focus groups, and subtheme 3 was present in 82% of focus groups; see ), differences between students are noted in each subtheme section. presents exemplar quotes from the students to illustrate the subthemes.

Sociocultural Influences on Students' Educational and Career Pursuits

Conclusion

Results suggest that nuanced differences exist between Latino, Asian, and white freshmen's reasons for pursuing a science education. Latino students reported a greater connection between broader prosocial goals and their reasons for pursuing a science degree or career. Further, FG Latino students were more likely to express unique symbolic goals, such as being the first to get a college degree in one's family as a means of raising the prestige of one's family as a whole. Latino students were more likely to value the ability to provide practical financial support to their parents. Comments from Latino and Asian students indicate that their cultural backgrounds and values also play a significant role in their interest in pursuing a science education, as it affords them the possibility of satisfying symbolic and practical goals related to their families. Such sentiments were also more likely to be expressed by FG Latino students, relative to CG Latino students. The findings suggest that Asian and Latino students pursue science careers as a means of making their families proud, improving their families' standing, and fulfilling their parents' aspirations for a better life. Importantly, FG Latino students were the only group to have the majority of participants mention all three subthemes, reflecting a more complex set of prosocial motivations for pursuing a science degree and career. This may help explain the results of our longitudinal survey, where early-college FG Latino students were more strongly impacted by perceptions of science as able to fulfill prosocial goals, relative to CG Latino students. Though almost all Latino students reported the importance of giving back to one's community with one's work in the focus groups (subtheme 2), for FG Latino students, a prosocial science career would fulfill a broader set of goals (i.e., subthemes 1 and 3).

GENERAL DISCUSSION

Our results demonstrate that students' perceptions that prosocial values of helping others and giving back to the community can be fulfilled by a career in science can lead many URM students to become more interested in such careers. This finding is consistent with research finding that advanced URM students who recognize that their research fulfills prosocial goals are more psychologically involved in their research, which in turn leads to greater interest in pursuing science research careers (). However, unlike previous research on prosocial goals and science motivation, the current research indicates that these perceptions of science may be more important to some URM subgroups relative to others and that effects on science identity plays a critical mediating role in this process.

The importance of students' science identity development in this process should not be surprising, given the findings that students from URM backgrounds often struggle to connect their personal/cultural and science identities (; ). When science is seen as failing to provide opportunities to fulfill students' prosocial cultural values, misalignment is created between their identities. But when students, in particular FG-URMs, can see science as providing opportunities to fulfill their culturally connected prosocial goals, they should experience greater congruity between their personal/cultural and science identities. During a life period when identity formation is a major developmental goal ( Erikson, 1959 ) and undergraduate students are committing to and switching majors frequently, finding ways to help diverse sets of students authentically identify more strongly with science is important for broadening and sustaining participation.

As previous intervention work suggests (), intersections of social identities are important to consider as we strive to discover the best practices for diversifying and broadening participation in science education. Future interventions should consider addressing nuanced sets of motivators tailored to excite the diverse sets of underrepresented students who are at highest risk of attrition. Specifically, a better understanding of the subgroup differences between FG- and CG-URM students will assist retention of the broadest sets of students. Our qualitative focus group data contribute to that understanding by identifying additional symbolic (i.e., raising the status of one's family) and practical (i.e., providing financial support to one's family) concerns that FG-URM college students are motivated by when selecting their career paths.

This research contributes to the growing body of evidence showing that attending to ways in which science can help students embody their personal values is an important aspect of science education, but even more so for particular groups of students ( Hulleman and Harackiewicz, 2009 2015 ). Future work planning interventions to help students maintain their belief that science can, in fact, help them meet their goals should consider testing interventions that specifically address the ability to fulfill prosocial goals, comparing this effect against already successful general utility value interventions. ; ; ,

Future research should also compare historically underrepresented groups (i.e., blacks, Latinos, and American Indians) directly to see whether these patterns hold across these groups. One limitation of our research is that the URM sample is primarily Latino in the quantitative survey phase and exclusively Latino in the qualitative focus group phase. Previous research has shown that various cultural groups that are underrepresented face similar cultural barriers and, thus, might be expected to follow similar patterns. However, the present research does not test this hypothesis directly. More work is needed to help inform the retention efforts of science educators across underrepresented groups.

Regardless, science educators should consider highlighting how course material is applicable to helping one's community as a means of protecting students' initial interest in science careers. Whereas this might be more likely to occur in advanced or specialized undergraduate courses, our findings suggest that broadening the possible definitions of what science is and what science pursuits can afford matters, even for first-semester freshmen. To fulfill the commitment expressed at the national level by national agencies such as the National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Institutes of Health and professional scientific societies, we must use what we have learned about why students pursue science and integrate this wisdom in our everyday teaching strategies.

As we move forward, it may become increasingly important to engage URM students about the opportunities to use science to meet prosocial goals from the very beginning of students' college experience (if not sooner). Interviews with URM scientists who have chosen against academic careers indicate that they are questioning the direct relevance of their pursuit of science ( Gibbs and Griffin, 2013 ). These considerations are occurring in a broader context wherein culturally relevant social issues (e.g., racial disparities in police use of force, criminal sentencing, or immigration policy) have become part of our everyday conversations with violent urgency. Many URM aspiring scientists feel confronted with the question of the prosocial importance of channeling their passion into intellectual pursuits relative to redirecting that energy toward activism. To ensure continued progress in broadening participation in science fields, we must emphasize to young students how science will allow them to make significant contributions to society and not just find significant statistical results.

Acknowledgments

Data collected for this study and preparation of this article were supported in part by grant DRL-1420271 from the NSF. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are our own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.

REFERENCES

Harackiewicz JM, Canning EA, Tibbetts Y, Priniski SJ, Hyde JS. Closing achievement gaps with a utility-value intervention: disentangling race and social class. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2015 doi: 10.1037/pspp0000075. [[PMC free article] [PubMed] Google Scholar]

Tran M, Herrera F, Garibay J. When science lacks diversity and social relevance can students be objective scientists and still be themselves. 2011. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in American Higher Education, held May 31-June 4 in San Francisco, CA.

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Science That Matters: The Importance of a Cultural Connection in Underrepresented Students' Science Pursuit

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Kenneth Gibbs, Monitoring Editor Recent research suggests that underrepresented minority (URM) college students, and especially first-generation URMs, may lose motivation to persist if they see science careers as unable to fulfill culturally relevant career goals.

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Disrupting Power and Privilege with Gender

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Disrupting Power and Privilege with Gender

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Bloom, J. W. (2006). Creating a classroom community of young scientists (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.

Creating a Classroom Community of Young Scientists helps teachers - both pre-service and in-service - to develop exciting science programs in their classrooms. This book provides the groundwork for designing and implementing a science program that takes into account the latest research in teaching and learning. It provides an approach that will capture children's imaginations, stimulate their curiosity and create a strong foundation for their continued interest in, and appreciation of, science and the world in which they live. The book is designed to be user-friendly, and offers an approach to teaching science that is exciting for teachers as well.

This thoroughly revised, second edition focuses on making inquiry more explicit both in terms of the process of inquiry and teaching in ways that capitalize on children's curiosity and questions. New material has also been added on U.S. and Canadian science standards, as well as professional standards for teachers.

Creating a Classroom Community of Young Scientists provides teachers with the insight and tools they need to develop exciting elementary and middle school science programs. Bloom's approach to science education is founded on the notion of democratic classroom communities, where students are responsible for and in control of their own and others' learning. This approach, and the inquiry-based and activity-oriented learning methods it endorses, will stimulate children's imaginations and create a strong foundation for their continued interest in science.

User-friendly and engaging, the book is supplemented throughout by real-life examples, questions for reflection, and suggested classroom activities that make science education exciting for the teacher as well as the students. This thoroughly revised and updated second edition contains a significant amount of new material, including new information on science education standards and a new chapter on the benefits of an inquiry-based teaching method fueled by children's curiosity and questions.
Features include:
Sidebar reflective questions and suggested activities encourage the reader to further engage with the material covered in each chapter
Activities and teaching strategies are presented in relation to U.S. and Canadian science education standards
Real-life examples pulled from current issues and challenges in teaching elementary science
Table of Contents
Part 1. Getting Started

1 Introduction

2 Initial Explorations

Part II. Teaching Science for Children's Meaningful Learning

3 Nature of Science

3.1 Introduction
3.2 Views of science: Scientists and thinkers about science
3.3 Activities
3.4 Examples of children's ideas
3.5 Summary

4 Children's Learning and Sense-Making

4.1 Constructivism
4.2 Social constructivism
4.3 Contexts of meaning
4.4 Categorization
4.5 Play
4.6 Complex learning
4.7 Summary of implications for teaching

5 Children's Talk

5.1 The traditional approach to classroom discussions
5.2 An alternative approach to classroom discussions
5.3 An example of a classroom argument
5.4 Extending our understandings of how to work with children's discussions

6 Teaching and Learning through Inquiry

7 Assessing Children's Learning, Thinking, and Talk

7.1 Establishing goals
7.2 Some necessary background
7.3 The purpose of assessment
7.4 Some approaches to assessment
7.5 Observations and performance assessment
7.6 What to look for and keeping track
7.7 Additional issues of assessment as driven by curricular documents and national standards
7.8 A final activity

8 Planning and Implementing Instruction

8.1 Some basic guidelines and principles to consider
8.2 How and where to start
8.3 A simple model of planning - E-7
8.4 Instructional plans
8.5 Alternative sequencing for a restricted curriculum situation
8.6 Taking into account children's ability levels (...but not selling them short!)
8.7 Teaching and working with children: Implementing instruction
8.8 Some example unit topics and themes
8.9 Yearly planning

9 Classroom as Community of Young Scientists

10 Reflective Practice

11 Where to Go From Here: Participating in the Professional Community

11.1 Participating in the professional community
11.2 Continuing to learn about science
11.3 Continuing your professional development
Part III. Appendices
A Safety

A.1 Physical safety
A.2 Personal, psychological, and social safety

B United States Science Education Standards

C Canadian Science Education Standards

D Learning and Teaching for Complexity

D.1 Systems
D.2 Patterns, metapatterns, and other broadly connecting concepts
D.3 Teaching and learning for complex understandings

E More On Planning - Curriculum Units

E.1 More planning tools
E.2 Sample curriculum unit ideas

F Field Studies

F.1 Types of field studies
F.2 Planning an extended field study
F.3 Summary

G Sample Activities

G.1 Structures
G.2 Marble collisions
G.3 Pendulums
G.4 Balancing act
G.5 Batteries and bulbs
G.6 Construct a boat to hold a specific cargo
G.7 Forest or open field study
G.8 Exploring metapatterns
G.9 Challengers - Jumping into what scientists experience

H Data Collection and Analysis Techniques

H.1 Background
H.2 Collecting data
H.3 Analyzing data
H.4 Formulas and conversions
H.5 Summary

I Science Techniques

I.1 Collecting and keeping organisms
I.2 Science techniques and procedures
I.3 Science equipment and measurement

J Technology

K Equipment, Supplies, and Materials

K.1 Basic science equipment and materials for the classroom
K.2 Sources of science supplies and equipment

L Professional Resources

L.1 Professional organizations
L.2 Science-related organizations
L.3 Internet resources by science topic or resource
L.4 Teacher professional journals and children's magazines
L.5 Books for teachers

Reviews

Creating Classroom Community of Young Scientists is a rich smorgasbord of fruitful and inspiring ideas about science teaching that will serve a wide range of readers. The book is based on current research about learning, classrooms, and teaching and supplies a multitude of practical ideas for teaching that are richly illustrated by samples of student work and classroom dialogue, making them useful for teachers of all levels of experience. The theoretical frameworks Bloom supplies help the reader understand the reasons for the practical ideas he presents.

- Deborah J. Trumbull, Director of the Cornell Teacher Education Program and author of The New Science Teacher: Cultivating Good Practice

Jeffrey Bloom has deliberately added to the value of Creating a Classroom Community of Young Scientists in the second edition. In this book, he comprehensively connects the why to the how, providing those who use it with a vision and a pathway for effective teaching practice. As a veteran science educator, I understand that the goal of scientific literacy can, at times, seem insurmountably difficult to achieve, but this book will enable even the most inexperienced teachers to immediately address the problem of superficial science learning in their classrooms.

- Karynne L. M. Kleine, Associate Professor of Education, Georgia College State University

Creating a Classroom Community of Young Scientists provides teachers with the insight and tools they need to develop exciting elementary and middle school science programs. Bloom's approach to science education is founded on the notion of democratic classroom communities, where students are responsible for and in control of their own and others' learning. This approach, and the inquiry-based and activity-oriented learning methods it endorses, will stimulate children's imaginations and create a strong foundation for their continued interest in science.

User-friendly and engaging, the book is supplemented throughout by real-life examples, questions for reflection, and suggested classroom activities that make science education exciting for the teacher as well as the students. This thoroughly revised and updated second edition contains a significant amount of new material, including new information on science education standards and a new chapter on the benefits of an inquiry-based teaching method fueled by children's curiosity and questions.

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Creating a Classroom Community of Young Scientists

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Bloom, J. W. (2006). Creating a classroom community of young scientists (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. Creating a Classroom Community of Young Scientists helps teachers - both pre-service and in-service - to develop exciting science programs in their classrooms. This book provides the groundwork for designing and implementing a science program that takes into account the latest research in teaching and learning.

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Giving students the opportunity to facilitate their own discussions and learning.

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In an elementary science classroom, it's not incredibly challenging to motivate students to want to do science and engineering. I find that the students at the grade-level I teach (fifth) are excited about school and learning and their attitudes mirror the words of the Framework for K-12 Science Education: The actual doing of science or engineering can also pique students' curiosity, capture their interest, and motivate their continued study; the insights thus gained help them recognize that the work of scientists and engineers is a creative endeavor [5, 6]-one that has deeply affected the world they live in." ( Framework 2013, 42-43).

Because of this vision for science and engineering education, I recognize that I must capitalize on this incredible interest by building community, the natural glue, to serve as the foundation for our classroom culture of "figuring it out." Over time, I have realized that this community-building process is slow, yet deliberate, and by doing it thoroughly and thoughtfully, the class gains so much more than ever intended. It not only increases their science knowledge, but also helps students develop respectful relationships with one another. Students acknowledge the importance of listening meaningfully to one another while respectfully disagreeing with someone else's ideas. They also come to value the meaning and importance of consensus.

First things first. We establish norms early, publicly post them, and revisit them daily. Building classroom community is a work-in-progress for these young students. It's also a way to ensure that everyone has a voice, that science ideas are built together over time, and that we make sense of what we're doing in a way that is collaborative, not isolating. We do a lot of "talk science," moving between statements and questions that encourage us to not only value what someone has said but also try to bring meaning and understanding to their ideas.

For example, the statements "Are you saying...?"; "Say more"; and "What do you mean by...?" encourage students to recognize that we value what they have to say. This sense of respect between one another also enables us to accomplish more in the long run because we feel safe and trust one another with our ideas, even if we disagree with them.

Second, we build our classroom community together by recognizing that as a community of scientists and engineers, we design our learning together. As the teacher, I am not the giver of information, but rather a facilitator who is also "figuring out" science ideas alongside students. This means that as we engage with phenomena, the investigation ideas are chosen by the students. If the class agrees on an idea to investigate that they think will hopefully answer class questions, these ideas are publicly posted alongside the norms. These investigation ideas remind students that they are the ones who not only have to do the "figuring out," but they also depend upon one another to build the ideas over time.

Finally, a big idea that emerges from student-led investigations is that sometimes the classroom community's investigations bring us somewhere, and at other times, they don't. Either way, our class celebrates the roads we've traveled in this process, and we accept failure and success together.

For example, in a fifth-grade unit designed to show where our clean water comes from and where it goes after use, we wanted to discover which way treated water flowed once it left a wastewater treatment plant. Thinking that boat traffic or wind had something to do with it, we tried putting wind-up toy boats in containers of water and running fans over those same containers. To no avail, the water didn't flow. But when we tilted the containers, water came rushing out, demonstrating how elevation plays a role in flowing water. Without the "failed" investigations, we never would have learned to what we needed to figure out, and missed out on a success story for our class! From here, we could then uncover where treated water ended up in our city.

Each year, as a new group of students walks in, or I loop with another group of students, I am excited to build community with them, either by starting new, or picking up where we left off. My excitement for building community in science inspires my students, and we hit the ground running...with one another, working together.

Gretchen Brinza is a fifth- and sixth-grade science teacher in the Chicago Public Schools. She is NGSX trained and an author and pilot teacher for both NextGen Storylines and PAGES curriculum development. She is the 2016 PAEMST Awardee for K-6 Science in Illinois and was honored as the 2017 Illinois STEM Educator of the Year. She is always willing to learn more about three-dimensional learning and the positive impact it has on student learning in science. Note: This article is featured in the June issue of Next Gen Navigator, a monthly e-newsletter from NSTA delivering information, insights, resources, and professional learning opportunities for science educators by science educators on the Next Generation Science Standards and three-dimensional instruction. Click here to sign up to receive the Navigator every month. Visit NSTA's NGSS@NSTA Hub for hundreds of vetted classroom resources, professional learning opportunities, publications, ebooks and more; connect with your teacher colleagues on the NGSS listservs (members can sign up here); and join us for discussions around NGSS at an upcoming conference. The mission of NSTA is to promote excellence and innovation in science teaching and learning for all.
Future NSTA Conferences

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Building Classroom Community in an NGSS-Aligned Elementary Science Classroom

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In an elementary science classroom, it's not incredibly challenging to motivate students to want to do science and engineering.

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Students are leading discussions and ideas

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Putting Students in Charge of Their Learning Journey

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By leaving space in their lessons for authentic curiosity to take hold, teachers can enable deeper learning.

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Classroom Community Student centered classroom (2)

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Classroom Community Student centered classroom (2)

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Allow Students to Share in Decision Making

Believe in Students' Capacity to Lead

Give Up Need for Control

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Student-Centered Learning: It Starts With the Teacher

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Teachers encourage student-centered learning by allowing students to share in decisions, believing in their capacity to lead, and remembering how it feels to learn.

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Science Classroom being inclusive

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Written by Katy Paton

Personal observations and experiences within a variety of school environments have reinforced my understanding of how a teacher can create an inclusive science classroom. Having a strong understanding of the material itself, linking the curriculum to current events, creating a supportive environment, capturing students' interest and maintaining it through hands-on experiences, facilitating engaging reflection, and utilizing a variety of assessments; a teacher's role is critical for the students' success.

Initially, teachers should familiarize themselves with what an inclusive science classroom looks and feels like, and where possible, visit classrooms where the inquiry process is utilized. While observing a teacher completing a unit, I noticed that she prepared and planned thoroughly, and made independent advance discoveries. She identified a clear learning goal, and reinforced it throughout the lessons. Having this goal and knowing the topic well allowed her to guide the students' learning, enforce key concepts, and support their knowledge as they progressed in their inquiry.

An engaging classroom is one where curriculum content is linked to current events. When the Olympics were underway and students were studying structures, the formative assessment activity was to design, build, and test a bobsled track using classroom materials to meet student-defined success criteria. Later, the focus shifted to the materials used, which led to discussions on recycling and conservation and, in turn, related to an upcoming school recycling initiative. Teaching lessons that are relevant and timely heightens students' interest in the topics and increases their enthusiasm.

Maintaining an environment that is exciting and challenging is vital for an inclusive classroom. Students must feel that they are safe and supported. Mistakes should not be viewed as any sort of failure, but rather as a point of learning in the investigative process. During one class, students built boats using a variety of materials which the teacher discussed with them while asking thought provoking questions, but primarily allowed them to discover their own answers. No criticism or evaluative statements were made throughout the building process. Had the teacher been intrusive, the students may have refrained from creating their own versions of a boat. One of the greatest successes of the class was the number of times that they modified their designs, and were they not comfortable exploring and testing options, this would not have happened.

Establishing a classroom where all students are involved, using hooks to capture interest, and providing hands-on experiences allows everyone to become part of the lesson. Successful hooks range from exploration stations, pertinent books, relevant videos, and completing group activities relating to the particular unit. Once students are hooked, having hands-on experiences and active involvement becomes exciting, and they subsequently make their own discoveries. It is vital to use materials that are safe, age appropriate, and easy to find so that the students are not frustrated, and are challenged without being overwhelmed. Materials can be provided to the table groups in pre-arranged bins, both to avoid chaos, and also to promote student responsibility through maintaining and storing these bins themselves.

All students can benefit from a hands-on approach within a structured lesson, and this was demonstrated while working with a student with autism and another who was a non-English speaking newcomer to Canada. Having understood the goal of the lessons, they were able to thrive with hands-on experiments to a much greater degree than simply completing written or oral work. The non-English speaking student worked independently after being shown the goal, and observed other students completing their activities. Both students worked at their own pace, and continually refined their work. At the end of the boat building lesson, the student with autism was able to articulate why he thought his boat did not float and identify the necessary changes, specifically to remove the clay which weighed down his boat. The non-English speaking student did not articulate what should be changed, but demonstrated her understanding by adding a plate under the boat for balance, and removing several cups that caused it to capsize. Creating an inclusive science classroom provides opportunities for all students to succeed, and having a hands-on, structured approach facilitates this goal.

A critical component of a unit is taking the time to review work. This can be achieved by having students complete charts, worksheets, or design reports. Individual conferences and classroom discussions allow for further review of their findings. Gallery walks are useful, as when students are presenting their findings and explaining their thought processes, teachers can make additional notes to capture ideas that may not have been evident. Even if an explanation is not correct, understanding their rationale is beneficial. Students should be given the opportunity to modify their work based on class discussions to solidify their learning. Having the opportunity to individually consider their work, discuss results with the group, and continually improve, promotes a positive and open classroom environment.

Using a range of assessment techniques allows students to demonstrate their understanding in different ways. Teachers should not rely on a limited number of assessment methods based on their own comfort level. Supporting assessment techniques with individual conferences, group discussions, and gallery walks allows for a better understanding of students' thinking. Additionally, having students complete success criteria checklists gives them the opportunity to recheck their work, confirming that they achieved their intended goals. Incorporating varied assessment techniques allows students to shine in a variety of ways, and gives teachers a comprehensive understanding of their learning.

By applying a hands-on approach within a structured environment, teachers can capture the students' attention. Students have a strong innate desire to learn, and it is critical to teach lessons that are accessible to everyone. Having a solid understanding of the subject, linking it to current events, maintaining a supportive environment, providing hooks, hands-on and engaging activities and experiences, providing reflection time, and using varied assessments ensures that teachers create an inclusive science classroom, which in turn allows for the greatest possibility of success for every student.

Katy Paton is a 2014 Galbraith Science Education Award recipient

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How Can a Teacher Create an Inclusive Science Classroom?

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Written by Katy Paton Personal observations and experiences within a variety of school environments have reinforced my understanding of how a teacher can create an inclusive science classroom.

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demonstrates an intense level of curiosity in science.

makes intuitive leaps in solving science problems.

demonstrates extensive knowledge base in science and is able to relate that knowledge base to new problems and topics.

demonstrates unusually high levels of motivation and/or concentration.

demonstrates the ability to integrate information and concepts into existing knowledge base.

possesses a good memory.

persists in the pursuit of science knowledge or solving a problem.

comprehends abstract concepts beyond age level expectations.

sees connections between science and other disciplines.

uses mathematics to understand, define, and /or solve problems.

makes generalizations and assumptions based on data.

supports thinking with logical reasoning.

reasons analytically, deductively, and inductively, and is able to reverse the reasoning process and to switch methods easily and in a systematic manner.

views problems in a holistic manner.

shows confidence in the use of science processes and a willingness to take risks in advancing scientific explanations and posing questions.

understands and applies advanced scientific vocabulary.

evaluates experiemental results in light of the original problem

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Check e-mail ePayStub español | 中文 | français | tiếng Việt | 한국어 | አማርኛ

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Its Ok to Make MISTAKES
When doing SCIENCE HAVE FUN

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Science is FUN!!!!!

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Students doing hands on experiments

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My Science classroom set up students sitting in oval tables so they partner share/small group discussions. Colorful tables to make my classroom look inviting and welcoming. I will have my Desk on side to confer with students and the front will be for lecture and have students come up and share.