Chautauqua
Course DAY-3
Increasing the Retention of
Under-Represented Groups--And the Learning of All Groups--In Science,
Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Courses
CRAIG E. NELSON, Department of Biology,
April 28-30, 2008 in
This course will make your semester. If you are one of the minuscule minority of
science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professors whose
classrooms are really free of discrimination, you will go away feeling deeply
affirmed (and will have been a resource of immense help to the rest of
us). If not, you will go away with
clearer ideas as to how bias is unintentionally built into (virtually) every
STEM professor's classroom practices and content (yes, even into the content). More importantly, you will have some
strategies to make your classes fairer without sacrificing learning. Indeed, several of the procedures radically
increase learning.
Key questions will include: (1) What changes in pedagogy are most important
in radically increasing equity, retention and learning overall while
maintaining or raising standards? (How
has calculus been taught so as to eliminate all Fs without sacrificing content?
How have D and F rates for
African-Americans been reduced from 60% to 4% in some STEM courses, again
without sacrificing content?) (2) How do assessment and grading practices often unnecessarily and
unfairly bias STEM courses against students from underpowered backgrounds (rural
whites, African-Americans, etc.)? In addition to providing strong evidence for
changes that are typically effective we will explore a series of frameworks
that explain why ineffective and biased practices have tended to persist
including “dysfunctional illusions of rigor.”
As time allows, we will experiment with some additional questions and
examples that may help us learn to see both opportunity and bias in aspects of
content such as word-choice, metaphors, and questions asked and not asked. Throughout, participants will be invited to
provide additional examples and to design specific ways to apply these
approaches in their courses and programs.
For college teachers AND ADMINISTRATORS of:
all disciplines. Prerequisites: none.
Costs for 2008
Application fee: $100 [$50 if
received by February 29, 2008]
Course fee: $395 [Due in March
2008]
Optional on-site lodging: $48
per person per night in a double, $64 single
Dr. Nelson is
Professor Emeritus of Biology at