Mapping Our Practice, Fall 2025 by

2025-09-05 20:36:14 UTC

I think the most important aspects is to have ownership of our action.

Applications of STEM as living practice

2025-09-05 20:36:22 UTC

When I ask my students to apply techniques from statistics, i think they understand better when rules apply or when rules should be broken and what the consequences are of breaking the rules

Math cultural differences: Observation over long time, noticing patterns vs deductive logic from axioms

2025-09-05 20:47:25 UTC

Biology - using food as a way to connect students to biology, especially those who may not think they have a lot of connecting with nature (from urban areas, etc). We all eat plants. :)

wstjohn4 — 2025-09-05 20:52:20 UTC

Creating new things

2025-09-05 20:52:26 UTC

In math, assignments can have students create new examples (e.g. topology for a given set) or new definitions (e.g. a sequence "flirts with" a point)

Utilizing Culturally Relevant Teaching

2025-09-05 20:56:24 UTC

I revamped my curriculum to help students connect their personal backgrounds with the skills and knowledge they acquire in class. The majority of my students come from farming families, and the agricultural industry is the most familiar context for them.

I emphasize that cutting-edge technology is not far removed from their experiences. For example, modern AI tools can be applied to build smart farms and increase agricultural productivity. I have found that students are especially motivated when they can explore ways to support their family businesses with what they learn in class.

Computer Science

2025-09-05 20:57:35 UTC

Sharing history of computing and of computer scientists. Students can see that the first computers were humans and electronic computers are just tools created by humans. Students may identify with past computer scientists.

Biology: conservation biology

mcover14_1 — 2025-09-05 20:58:37 UTC

moving away from western environmentalist views of humans separate from nature. bringing in examples, especially of indigenous wisdom and knowledge, about connection and relationships among people and land and other species

Places we know..../Seasons

2025-09-05 20:59:06 UTC

in the context of global biome/ecosystem patterns we start with considering 'places we know' - when you think about the change of seasons, what were your clues about shifting seasons? what did you notice around you? Then we pair/share in groups and add to a group discussion board. Then I close with summarizing/riffing off the group discussion board. This often can lead us into talking about what I want them to learn about seasonality (regions of the globe, daylength changes, etc...) but in the context of their prior experience/knowledge

Computer Science

2025-09-05 20:59:46 UTC

Engaging students in an activity to practice rogramming by asking them to create a madlibs template that tells their story. They instructor could also share their story with their students through an example template.

Inviting students to identify with well-known figures in CS

2025-09-05 21:00:33 UTC

I teach a math-intensive computer science course that often proves intimidating to students. I like to begin my course with an introduction that reminds students that computer science is applied math, and that many prominent figures in CS began as mathematicians. The purpose of this is motivate students to think of themselves as mathematicians and to not be afraid of the subject.

bio: interviewing family/relatives about biology in their lives

mcover14_1 — 2025-09-05 21:01:13 UTC

Physics mirror not reflecting students

2025-09-05 21:02:17 UTC

Most of us agreed that physics has a big problem with misalignment of what students see and do and their cultural experiences.

UD vs LD

2025-09-05 21:02:21 UTC

I feel that in Physics we do Living Practice much better in the upper division than in the lower division. For physics majors, therefore, we have more success with this than with non-majors who only take the lower division courses.

biology- challenging oppressive forces

mcover14_1 — 2025-09-05 21:03:38 UTC

challenges and opportunities in addressing ugly history of racial psuedoscience, unscientific ideas around sex, sexuality, and gender

Physics sort of preps us for work? Maybe?

2025-09-05 21:03:56 UTC

The room was split on whether or not physics students are well prepared for industry. It seems that may depend on the university. This will require a much more careful investigation (perhaps into classes taken and lab rotations, internships, etc.).

Computer Science

2025-09-05 21:06:24 UTC

When CS instructors teach programming, we usually use peer-programming approach so students get to learn from each other and from the instructor as well. This could be a practice of utilizing the windows/mirrors factor to rehumanize the teaching.

2025-09-05 21:23:20 UTC

I think one thing that is there certainly a difference between Industry and University in general. I am not talking that our students are doing bad in Industry! However, our students cannot change the environment!

struggling with imposter or performative issues/feelings - sharing other ways of knowing that aren't from our own ancestry.... also, acknowledging that more of our textbooks/resources are still firmly rooted in western science knowledge with little to no acknowledgement of the contributions of others... trying to break that practice and find an expanded set of information for our students

2025-09-05 21:34:39 UTC

2025-09-05 21:45:24 UTC

I make them write about themselves. Also, I asked them to comment on their peers.

2025-09-05 21:53:07 UTC

One thing that I learned from living abroad is

to have ideas from the walls of the University!

getting to know you through names

dnguyengraff — 2025-09-05 21:58:51 UTC

each of our names tells a story. do not let them the "Americanize" their name to make it easier for us

2025-09-05 22:13:14 UTC

I was sparked to perhaps ask students to find social media claims/"truths", then have them critically evaluate consequences if true or false or...

2025-09-05 22:23:11 UTC

Students physically model algorithms (sorting, searching) with their bodies.

Ownership through Project-based Learning

2025-09-05 22:23:55 UTC

All of my courses are project-based and incorporate culturally relevant teaching practices. Students are encouraged to identify real-world problems from their daily lives or cultural backgrounds. Since my campus is located in the Central Valley, students often select topics related to the agricultural industry or sustainability.

Students then explore and define these real-world problems, designing and implementing solutions in the form of software or applications. I have received numerous positive comments from students, as they appreciate the opportunity to apply their skills and knowledge to address challenges they encounter in their daily lives.

Creation through Project-based Learning

2025-09-05 22:24:15 UTC

Bodies through Project-based Learning

2025-09-05 22:24:34 UTC

2025-09-05 22:24:58 UTC

I have noticed that computer science students feel that they are learning this major for their own future high-paying job and not necessarily for the school.

Coding Emotions

2025-09-05 22:25:39 UTC

-Frustration when something doesn't work

-Pride when you fix something

-Feelings of intuition around what could be going wrong

2025-09-05 22:31:20 UTC

I make them to think about creatin things!

Research experiences

2025-09-05 22:32:07 UTC

Our senior research experiences are great for this

calculus

2025-09-05 22:32:13 UTC

we talk about distance/velocity/acceleration all the time in calculus, but do students know what they feel like in their bodies?

Authority and Power as Dominant Paradigms in STEM that limit student agency

mcover14_1 — 2025-09-05 22:33:31 UTC

More educators need to self-reflect on the need for authority and domination in their teaching. Also, grades are problem.

Student Survey

2025-09-05 22:33:57 UTC

Have students take a survey for emotional checks after a lecture. Goal is to address when students feel discouraged and overwhelmed.

growth mind set

2025-09-05 22:34:13 UTC

Many of us are trying to help students develop growth mind set. Can we help them connect their emotions with ways struggling and persevering?

Check-In and Check-Out

jan1334_1 — 2025-09-05 22:35:52 UTC

Each class, invite students to share their emotions at the beginning of the class as check-in and at the end of the class as check-out. Students are able to relate their emotions and changes during each class.

2025-09-05 22:38:51 UTC

I think a lecturer should know that people in front of them are human being!

In our statistics class, the idea of ‘Windows and Mirrors’ reminds us that data isn’t just numbers—it represents real people’s lives, stories, and experiences. Statistics can help us see both ourselves and others in the world of data.

2025-09-12 21:48:25 UTC

Statistics

2025-09-12 23:09:30 UTC

Having students measure things with their bodies, spacing themselves out to create a human boxplot or distribution, etc.

For emotions, tapping into topics that are meaningful to them; e.g. social justice or the environment as a way for them to connect data to the things they care about.

Student Choice

2025-09-12 23:10:55 UTC

Giving students the ability to choose a project topic, for example, can help provide them with feelings of ownership. Also having them to collect data (either about themselves or something they are interested in) can foster this, especially when coupled with the process of designing and defending a data collection plan.

dance moves with functions

2025-09-15 23:21:26 UTC

have students make dance moves when going over transformation of functions, for example a parabola will shift if it opens down and to the left four spaces and have students make these transformations with their arms

Wellbeing

2025-09-15 23:21:44 UTC

Our coordinated College Algebra has a wellness component where a health staff comes to our class 3 times a semester and shares with students tips about their health and wellness.

Time in Class

2025-09-15 23:21:50 UTC

Giving students time in class to 'debrief' about their experiences in mathematics. I recently had a sub and students had feeeeelings. We talked about it and I think it ended up being empowering for them.

Be the Professor

2025-09-15 23:22:23 UTC

I have students work in groups to help each other during classwork time. When possible I have a student in each group explain a concept that they understand to their group. And see if the group can do a simple problem containing that concept.

Reading Apprenticeship

2025-09-15 23:22:34 UTC

Not really sure where this goes, but using Reading Apprenticeship, where we intentionally talk about how to read through text and process information. I think this fits into the "Living Practice / Futures" because we are allowing them to create their own definitions for themselves, and encouraging them to ask questions that may not be answered in the class. I feel like this emphasizes the "way of being" mentioned in the dimension definition, because we are focusing on how to use textbooks and other primary sources as a part of their learning and some of the questions they may ask may lead them to build curiosity for the subject and start interacting with the subject like an expert would.

Encouraging students to become ethically responsible software engineers by making them aware of how easily a racial bias can make its way into a machine vision algorithm

2025-09-17 23:03:02 UTC

In the past, I asked students to watch a short TED Talk by Joy Buolamwini, a graduate student at MIT at the time (2017). She speaks about the importance of fighting bias in algorithms, specifically racial bias. In her talk she expresses how a machine vision algorithm was trained to recognize faces but the training set did not use images representing a wide range of skin tones or facial structures. As a result, robots programmed with this algorithm were not able to recognize her face (Joy is a woman of color). I presented this video to stress how easily personal biases can make their way into machine biases, and how as future software engineers, my students can play an important role in ensuring that social inequities are not perpetuated by the algorithms that form or will form part of everyday life.

Using popsicle sticks to help students visualize array sorting algorithms

2025-09-17 23:04:08 UTC

This semester I plan on having students experiment with sorting algorithms using popsicle sticks with names on it. The plan is to have students compete against each other by sorting the popsicle sticks using different algorithms (e.g. merge-sort vs. quick-sort). The goals for this activity will be for students to gain a deeper understanding of the how the algorithm works and how its efficiency compares to other algorithms.