Research-Based Strategies for Teaching

The Takeaway: The author explores existing literature on STEM reform through the lens of organizational change and highlights the ways that current practice falls short of the radical change necessary for eradicating structural barriers to inclusion in STEM education.

Summary of arguments: A common critique of current programs/initiatives designed to address and eradicate persistent racial disparities in undergraduate STEM education is the focus on student outcomes as an indicator of project performance.

• Student grades, rates of enrollment, and persistence are used to gauge whether and the degree to which institutions, departments, and programs are successfully and equitably recruiting and supporting students of marginalized identities.
• However, these metrics place the burden of responsibility for addressing persistent disparities on underrepresented students on students themselves, and fail to acknowledge the ways that institutional systems, structures, policies, and practices exist as barriers to equity and inclusion.

The need for institutional change regarding STEM retention of underrepresented minority groups has been recognized by federal agencies, such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).

• HHMI specifically acknowledges that scientific excellence demands inclusion and that the responsibility for creating and sustaining environments that are safe and supportive of peoples of all identities is the responsibility of institutions.
• This requires a shift of focus from measuring and monitoring students to assess the effectiveness and impact of STEM reform to examining and exploring colleges and universities themselves to (1) better understand the institutional factors that contribute to persisting gaps in student success and (2) equip and empower institutional leaders with the knowledge, skills, and competencies necessary for catalyzing and sustaining lasting institutional change.

Faculty and institutional leaders can identify, understand, and address structural and systemic barriers to equity and inclusion through organizational learning, characterized into single loop and double loop learning.

• Single loop learning is limited to an individual or organization’s existing realm of knowledge and does not consider, challenge, aim to understand, or grow beyond current ways of knowing, frameworks, priorities, value systems, etc.

• Often prioritizes the improvement of organizational effectiveness and efficiency and are limited to identifying and solving errors or problems.

• Double loop learning requires the unearthing and interrogation of the unspoken assumptions, values, and beliefs that inform the conventional practices of the status quo, requiring that organizations and their members challenge convention and transcend cognitive frames.

• These processes for catalyzing and sustaining second-order change are challenging and uncomfortable, as organizational members take responsibility for problematic historical traditions, cultural norms, and values, as well as institutional limitations, challenges, and barriers to change.

Research attributes the lack of successful implementation of organizational transformation to a lack of institutional capacity to sustain the organizational learning that facilitates change.

• Capacity is “the power to engage in and sustain the learning of people at all levels of the educational system for the collective purpose of enhancing student learning” (Stoll 1999). It is also an infrastructure that ensures that persons within an organization are equipped and supported in (a) routinely assessing and learning from the contexts that surround them, and (b) applying that learning to adapt strategies and goals to the changing conditions and needs and demands of their constituents and the contexts that surround them.
• Capacity building that promotes and sustains systematic change must

1. Create and maintain a culture and institutional conditions that facilitate growth and change
2. Create opportunities for learning and skill development for organizational members at all levels
3. Develop mutual/bidirectional relationships and communities that promote and sustain systemic change within

There are various myths and misconceptions of change (i.e. things that institutions and their leaders may take for granted in approaching and sustaining organizational change practices) that could impede the success and sustainability of institutional transformation agendas. Similarly, there are also corresponding truths that empower change agents and their efforts.

• Myth/misconception #1: Change comes easy. Project leaders who identify and implement new strategies for change rarely consider how to engage faculty colleagues and gain the buy-in necessary for the transformation of institutional practice, due to the underlying assumption that getting people to learn is a matter of motivation.

• Corresponding truth #1: Organizations are resistant to change. Leaders believe that organizational challenges must be solved quickly and quietly to avoid shame and embarrassment of any perceived vulnerability; this is especially true for colleges and universities led by highly skilled academics trained to become experts and build careers generating knowledge. Organizational leaders must approach change in full acknowledgement that organizational members prioritize stability and avoid failure or perceived failure at all costs.

• Myth/misconception #2: Change is loyal to legacy and tradition. Institutional members subscribe to norms subconsciously and hold to them for fear of loss or utility, purpose, and identity. Many faculty believe that change and evolution are fine as long as the means by transformation is not disruptive or impolite, such that in the face of inequities and injustice, organizational members ignore and cover-up problematic practices and behaviors out of allegiance and loyalty to the systems that trained and socialized them to comply.

• Corresponding truth #2: Change that maintains the status quo is not change at all. Institutions committed to transformation must be intentionally critical, interrupting, and interrogating traditions and norms. Organizational learning that leads to change is not birthed from a place of knowing what to do, but rather where institutions admit their ignorance while committing to engage in iterative and critical self-study. Thus, faculty and institutional leaders must be trained to identify a problem and enact potentially disruptive solutions.

• Myth/misconception #3: Change is the sole responsibility of STEM faculty and institutional members. Existing STEM reform programs are designed to suggest that faculty and institutional leaders are inherently equipped to engage, facilitate, and sustain the work of organizational learning and institutional change.

• Corresponding truth #3: Change is a collective responsibility. Real reform for equity in STEM requires reformers to unlearn old and ineffective values, strategies, and systems in favor of new ideologies and approaches to equity, inclusion, and the success of all students. This is the collective responsibility of not only STEM faculty, but also of colleges and universities and the agencies and institutions that fund transformational reform work.

Pivoting from the myths of institutional change to the truths of pursuing and sustaining transformation is essential to shifting conventional practice from fixing STEM students to identifying and eliminating institutional and systemic barriers to student success.

What are some concrete ways in which the university can better break down myths and  withhold corresponding truths to promote transformational reform in STEM and better support students from underrepresented backgrounds?