Transforming Undergraduate STEM Education Supporting Equitable and Effective Teaching (2025) / Chapter Skim
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9 Role of the Institution in Creating Equitable and Effective Learning Environments
9 Role of the Institution in Creating Equitable and Effective Learning Environments
Pages 225-263
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, the academic units (i.e., those who manage the academic mission) , and the institutional leaders (i.e., those who make policy and resource decisions that impact how teaching and learning can take place at the institution)
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The institutional context also impacts interactions of students, instructors, academic units, and campus leaders (middle ring) in ways that influence student learning (both cognitive and socio-cultural)
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That is, work to achieve equitable and effective learning environments is a journey and not a destination that can be defined today and reached tomorrow. The concept of continuous improvement, originally developed in manufacturing, can usefully be applied to this type of STEM education reform (Singh & Singh, 2015; Temponi, 2005)
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, all of which have been players in the effort to improve undergraduate STEM education (Austin et al., 2024)
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Organizational change can be described, broadly, as being one of three types: first order, second order, or third order (Gonazales & Culpepper, 2024)
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Some are actions, such as an invited speaker or an optional one-time workshop, which are unlikely to lead to any change and may not reach people who are least informed about issues of exclusion, privilege, and implicit bias. David Asai, former Senior Director for Science Education in the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, where his team developed initiatives advancing inclusive STEM learning, recently stated that "when confronted with the truth that STEM lacks diversity, our first impulse is to recruit more persons from the underrepresented groups" (personal correspondence from David Asai to Gabriela Weaver, October 2024)
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This approach requires new or revised policies and practices, long-term reallocation of resources, and ongoing learning and reflection to shift mental models about how academic units, colleges, universities, and/or the profession should work. These underlying models, structures, and culture are what maintain inequity and need to be addressed through transformational change (Kezar, 2018; McNair et al., 2020)
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. CREATE STUDENT-READY INSTITUTIONS The experience of teaching and mentoring undergraduate students in STEM varies by institutional context, mission, and perhaps most importantly, across levels of student preparedness to learn the course material.
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The impact of institutional finances on STEM instruction can be seen, for example, when looking at the various roles of introductory STEM courses, both financial and educational. Introductory STEM courses are frequently taught to large numbers of students, (and at research institutions are responsible for supporting many graduate students teaching assistants)
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Institutional leaders often have to make difficult decisions about competing priorities and finite resources, Various forms of data, including financial data, can help administrators, leaders, and instructors to build a culture and infrastructure that supports equitable and effective teaching with an eye toward sustainable, long-term programmatic and instructional changes. Infrastructure, policies, and practices also relate directly to data in terms of what data is available to whom and for what purposes.
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. Institutional alignment across these efforts will ensure that decisions at each level are guided by the same values, promoting equitable and effective teaching for all students, as articulated in the seven Principles of this report.
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Access to professional learning means that all categories of faculty, instructors, and teaching assistants, can develop the necessary skills with evidence-based pedagogies and inclusive teaching practices through ongoing programming and resources available to them through their institution or professional societies. As mentioned in Chapter 8's discussion of professional learning, a single workshop or isolated experience is not likely to be effective unless it instigates further engagement by instructors.
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This is clearly a complex subject that interacts with many other components of the larger system, and one that does not always get prioritized by the academic unit or the institution. Reflect on the Role of Grades Letter grades are considered a staple of the educational system, but the history of the system is more complex than usually recognized today (Durm, 1993; Schneider & Hutt, 2013)
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that attempt to make grading more relevant and equitable, including approaches such as specifications grading. Specifications grading is term for a combination of multiple types of grading approaches.
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Furthermore, even with all the variations in grading approaches -- which arise for a range of factors, from different instructors teaching the same course to inconsistencies between courses in an academic unit, and from differences between academic units to the even more varied approaches that are possible between different institutions -- it can be easy to make high-stakes decisions about who is qualified to continue in STEM, receive a STEM degree, and how worthy they are as graduates -- all based on the imprecise measure of grades. Campus leadership also has a role in shaping the use of grades; one face of this is to organize an analysis of the courses where inequities across groups are more prevalent, with particular emphasis on large, introductory courses.
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Both quantitative and qualitative data can be used for strategic planning, program evaluation, and instructors' annual reviews. Quantitative data may comprise the student outcomes that programs often use to gauge Prepublication copy, uncorrected proofs
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Each of these areas can be considered at the class, academic unit, or institutional level. Here we provide examples at various levels as all are relevant to the thinking of institutional leaders using data to drive change.
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Box 9-1 gives a brief example of how data has been used by an institution to inform redesign of courses in ways in ways that promote higher student success. Prepublication copy, uncorrected proofs
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helped to drive initiatives for change. The institution made decision that decreased class sizes, increased the salaries of the faculty teaching these courses, and brought in more teaching assistants to provide students with personalized support.
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the Indiana University faculty Learning Analytics Learning Community, 88 (c) the California State University Equity Dashboards and Community College dashboards, 89 and (d)
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Does the institution espouse and reward an equity-minded student-centered perspective towards undergraduate education? The answers to these questions and more could affect what data will be collected, who it will be shared with, how it will be perceived and, ultimately, what impact it may have on STEM education Even after the data and approach to their use are clear in the form of intent, guidance and cultural context, it is still important to consider the individual, or individuals, using the data and their own individual experiences with data and with teaching.
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In general, quantitative data holds a privileged position in STEM conversations likely due to the similarity in numerical analysis approaches applied in STEM research. Qualitative data often is the least appreciated in STEM as it is often relegated to the realm of "opinion" because it relates to perception and experience, realms most often associated with social sciences (which many research funding agencies in the United States recognize as part of STEM but many natural and physical scientists may not)
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may have the express duty of combining data from multiple data silos and reporting this synthesis to leadership, with a subset of data used in reporting to a broader campus community. Externally administered undergraduate experience surveys (e.g., University of California Undergraduate Experience Survey, 92 National Survey of Student Engagement, 93 Community College Survey of Student Engagement, 94 and student surveys by the Higher Education Research Institute 95)
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STEM initiative, 96 NSF IUSE grants, HHMI Inclusive Excellence projects, 97 and the Sloan Foundation-funded SEISMIC Collaboration. 98 Some institutional efforts turn into national level consulting approaches such as Georgia State University's National Institute for Student Success.
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. Box 9-2 shows an example of an equity dashboard that provides data on academic units that provide courses for students who are majoring in another field.
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250 TRANSFORMING UNDERGRADUATE STEM EDUCATION instructors can receive course-specific reports and equity-focused questions relevant to teaching: Data-Enhanced Teaching and Learning (DETAiL) , and the institution's Course Equity Reports (originally developed as part of the SEISMIC collaborative)
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It is notable that this tool was made broadly available with minimal oversight at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and that the institution is slowly growing their community of users. BOX 9-3 Equity Dashboards at University of Nebraska-Lincoln At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL)
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BOX 9-4 Equity Dashboards for the at California State University System The California State University Course Equity Portal provides each faculty member across the whole system of 24 institutions with historical course grade records and identifies students with notable equity gaps in the rates at which they received low or non-passing grades. Criteria for selecting which courses to show faculty include effect size, overall size of the difference (i.e., must be greater than 10 percentage points difference)
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self-reflection questions. This last is critical in part because it could be natural for instructors viewing data like these to slip into a defensive and/or deficit mindset; the self-reflection questions can help faculty move themselves towards more constructive/productive questions.
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The tool was designed with the intention of providing information that might inspire empathy, and motivate course change efforts that could improve overall student learning and equity. All users only have access to the courses they have taught.
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For example, predictive analytics could be used to identify students needing additional support or to label or exclude students. Equity gaps in student performance could be used to identify instructors needing additional support or professional learning opportunities, or to judge and punish.
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Here we illustrate some of the interconnections across academic units that help explain why course level data might be of interest to institutional leaders (Figure 9-2)
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In all these instances, departmental and institutional leaders can create the expectations and infrastructure for these forms of data to be normalized throughout academic units and the institution. When considering course-level innovations to foster effective and equitable teaching, there are multiple approaches to data for instructors and instructional communities that are being employed.
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and interdepartmental learning communities can ensure that valuable instructional expertise gained in one discipline has the opportunity to impact other disciplines within related academic units. None of these activities can be optimized without data resources, compensation for time spent on this, and a clear message of the value of equitable and effective teaching communicated throughout the academic unit and institution.
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In addition, as mentioned earlier, this level of data can be of value to institutional leaders working to make systemic change and to drive continuous improvement toward equitable and effective teaching. VALUE AND REWARD TEACHING Recognizing and rewarding faculty for implementing equitable teaching practices is essential to achieving equitable and effective undergraduate STEM education.
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For example, there is a significant amount of work that takes place before a course begins, such as planning a syllabus to include selected source materials, creating assessments and learning progressions, preparing course materials, and engaging in professional development. While students will see the finished products of these efforts, the reasoning behind them may not be evident to a student; yet the approach to these planning steps may indeed distinguish higher and lower quality teaching.
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Therefore, we consider a discussion of the methods used for the evaluation of teaching a core component of a larger call to reform teaching and the educational experience for all students. Similar arguments have been made by others, such as the Boyer 2030 Commission report, which states, "Aligning the faculty rewards structure with the stated educational mission of the university is the most important reform we can make to ensure sustained, authentic institutional change in the quality of undergraduate education," (2022, p.
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Change toward equitable and effective teaching will require coordinated effort from multiple levels of institutional leadership and a culture of growth that is responsive to the needs of students and instructors. Upper-level administrators (e.g.
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Both quantitative and qualitative data are needed to fully understand what is happening in a system and to provide information to guide change efforts. Reflective analysis of data best guides policy and practice decisions and informs ongoing efforts at improvement.
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