Introductory STEM classes can pose significant hurdles to college students, often disproportionately so for groups of traditionally underserved students, such as first-generation students. Several strategies, including using active learning modalities, can improve student success and mitigate the high failure rate. But how do you effectively implement active learning without added cost in very large lecture sections?

We developed a model, the Integrated Peer Leadership Program (IPLP), in which students work in hierarchical groups and support each other in an active learning setting. By taking turns serving as peer leaders, students practice leadership skills and elevate both their own learning and that of their peers. Over four semesters, the model reduced the student failure rate, reduced student achievement gaps, and improved student learning gains on formative assessments. We anticipate that the model, which has no additional cost or time needs for instructor or institution, is portable to other large STEM courses.

At the core of every physics lab is a story that unfolds through students’ use of the science practices. Teachers can intentionally leverage storylines interwoven throughout a curriculum sequence to help students connect physics ideas to build an understanding of the natural world.  

Teachers will develop an understanding of how the connections among phenomena, science practices and physics principles can drive a powerful and engaging learning experience for all students. Teachers will learn about ways to modify existing lesson sequences to build a storyline that better connects the core ideas that are the targets of instruction so as to increase student access to physics. Participants will experience connecting a learning goal to a phenomenon and data and explore indicators of student engagement with the practices. 

Grading is embedded in many societies’ approach to formal education. Yet grading is known to contribute to inequity in education (including physics) by ranking students, gatekeeping, and holding outsized influence on students’ careers and livelihoods. Thus, recently, some educators have been turning a critical gaze towards grading and evaluative practices overall. One approach to equitable educational reform is known as ungrading, the practice of de-emphasizing or removing grades altogether in formal classroom settings. Today, “ungrading” serves as an umbrella term encompassing a variety of approaches and structures to feedback and evaluation. A small but growing group of physics instructors have been adopting and adapting these approaches. To better understand the landscape of ungrading practices, and to help support instructors who want to use ungrading, we need to characterize and distinguish different approaches and connect them to the myriad goals and values from which they emerge. In this talk, I outline a preliminary framework for characterizing ungrading practices in higher ed STEM classrooms.

Students enter college with a wide variety of backgrounds, expectations, motivations, perceptions, and goals.  They have varied beliefs and suspicions about their personal preparation for a course.  We have recently started our introductory engineering course by giving students three prompts to gain insights into their learning goals, previous experiences, and engineering perceptions.  We share a summary a period or two later to springboard into a discussion reiterating course goals and policies and sharing metacognitive strategies.  The discussion also helps students feeling underprepared see they are not alone and underscores that all students have things to learn.  We can also use the results to tailor certain course aspects.  The most common student questions are sent to appropriate experts; the results are posted as a resource on the course management system.  We will share implementation details, commonly observed trends, and ideas for adapting it to other courses.