
CRESE Seminars
Spring 2025 Seminars and Brown Bags...
Please Join Us!
This seminar series explores findings from discipline-based STEM education research that can help advance equity, academic success, and social mobility for all students. Distinguished speakers will present their research, followed by interactive Q&A sessions focused on translating these findings into practical teaching strategies for undergraduate STEM classrooms. Through these discussions, we will examine strategies to address barriers, foster inclusivity, and enhance student achievement within a diverse academic community. This series will showcase the significance of discipline-based STEM education research in undergraduate STEM programs, foster meaningful discussions, and inspire actionable change in teaching.
Seminars are noon-1 in Markstein 101 on the following Thursdays:
STEMunch & Learn Brown Bag
Tuesdays noon-1
Dates: TBA
Location: TBA
Join us for STEMunch & Learn, a brown bag lunch discussion of the scholarship of teaching and learning in STEM disciplines. No preparation is required - just bring your lunch and join the conversation as we explore common challenges we face in STEM classrooms, share successes, and exchange innovative ideas. See you there!
Fall 2024 abstracts
Thursday, February 20, 2025
Dr. Brean Prefontaine, Duke University
Abstract: Despite global demand for computing expertise, Black, Hispanic, American Indian/Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander people remain significantly underrepresented among students, faculty, and industry professionals in the field. Additionally, developed technologies continue to include elements of discrimination while appearing neutral. Our research focuses on how undergraduate computing students perceive race and how their perceptions may influence their recognition of racial bias in computing contexts. Using a mixed-methods approach, we surveyed and interviewed undergraduate computing students across the country to further understand their race socialization before and during college, their understanding of race, and how they view racial bias in the context of academic and professional computing environments. In this talk, I will describe several important findings from our study, implications for computing education, and some next steps that faculty can take to help students further their understanding of race.
About the Speaker: Brean Prefontaine is a postdoctoral researcher at Duke University with The Alliance for Interdisciplinary Innovations in Computing Education (AiiCE). She earned her PhD in physics at Michigan State University and her BS in physics at Drexel University. Her dissertation focused on understanding how opportunities to facilitate informal physics programs can impact undergraduate students, particularly in their physics identity development. Her current research spans both computer science education and physics education and is focused on understanding the undergraduate student experience. Her physics education research continues to focus on the ways that undergraduate students facilitate in informal STEM spaces while her computer science education research is focused on how undergraduate computing students perceive and experience race and racism.
Erin Shortlidge, Portland State University
Abstract: TBA
About the Author: TBA
Previous seminars:
Fall 2024
Thursday Sept. 26, 2024
Eleanor Close, Texas State University San Marcos
Supporting equitable student success and inclusive STEM community through a Learning
Assistant Program
Abstract:
The Learning Assistant (LA) Model is a structure for near-peer instructional support
that has demonstrated benefits across a wide range of courses and institutions. At
Texas State University we launched our LA Program in 2012 in physics and have recently
expanded the program into biology and chemistry with a five-year NSF HSI project.
Our implementation of the LA Model is informed by the theory of Communities of Practice
and is structured specifically to create a shared culture of mutual support. Students
in LA-supported courses have both higher success rates (lower percentage of students
receiving grades of D or F, or withdrawing) and increased content learning. LAs change
their ways of learning and of being students as a result of their LA experience, and
physics LAs describe positive impacts on their physics identity and sense of belonging
to a supportive and collaborative community. In this talk I will describe the LA Model,
the specifics of the TXST LA Program, and some of the positive outcomes we have seen
for our STEM students and faculty.
About the speaker:
Dr. Eleanor Close is a Professor of Physics at Texas State University and a physics
education researcher. She co-directs the STEM Communities Learning Assistant Program
at TXST, co-organizes regional and national workshops through the National Learning
Assistant Alliance, and is currently PI of an NSF Noyce Scholarship project and Co-PI
on two NSF HSI projects. Her research interests include situated learning and identity
development through communities of practice, particularly for multiply marginalized
students; Learning Assistant program impacts on students, LAs, and faculty; and physics
teacher preparation and professional development. She received her Physics M.S. from
the University of Washington in 2003 and her Ed.D. in Curriculum & Instruction from
Seattle Pacific University in 2009. Between receiving her B.A. in Physics from Bryn
Mawr College and starting graduate school, she taught high school physics and physical
science for three years in rural North Carolina, where she became science department
chair by seniority after five months. In her non-work life, she co-parents three teenagers
and gardens with native plants for local wildlife.
Thursday Oct. 24, 2024
Natascha Trellinger Buswell, UC Irvine
The write answer for equitable and inclusive engineering classrooms
Abstract:
In this talk, Dr. Natascha Trellinger Buswell draws upon the breadth of her research
to examine the questions where and how writing and other professional skills, such
as writing, teaming, communication, and ethics, fit in to engineering classrooms.
While these topics are often relegated to specialty courses, Dr. Buswell argues for
inclusion of these topics in all engineering courses.
Next, Dr. Buswell shares her approaches to teaching in engineering classrooms. She explores research-based approaches and interventions that can support feelings of belonging in engineering classrooms, gives examples of assignments and discussion topics, and shares her beliefs for how to make engineering an equitable and inclusive field to all in the future.
About the speaker:
Natascha Trellinger Buswell is an Associate Professor of Teaching in the Department
of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at UC Irvine. She earned her PhD in engineering
education at Purdue University and her BS in aerospace engineering at Syracuse University.
Her dissertation examined the pathways and experiences of early-career faculty at
non-R1 institutions, and she is focused on understanding and supporting all students
through her teaching and research. Her research explores faculty and graduate student
teaching development, graduate student writing processes, the identity formation of
undergraduates, and the workplace experiences early-career engineers. She is particularly
interested in researching the stories of female and non-binary engineers and engineers
of color.
Thursday Nov 21, 2024
Lalo Gonzalez, UC Santa Barbara
Scalable Success: Use of Near-Peer Mentors to Promote STEM Student Academic Performance
Abstract:
Mentorship is an effective strategy to promote postsecondary STEM studnt academic
success and retention. However, as undergraduate STEM enrollment continues to increase,
faculty-student mentorship at large, public universities is not a scalable approach.
Here we describe the positive impacts of near-peer mentorship approaches which leverage
upper-division biology students to provide support to first- and second-year majors
at the University of California.
About the Author:
Lalo Gonzalez Nino is the Vice Chair for Undergraduate Studies in the Department of
Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at the University of California, Santa
Barbara. A first-generation Latino, he holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from
the Universidad Autónoma de Ciudad Juárez in Mexico and a PhD in biology from New
Mexico State University. In over a decade of experience in STEM education, Eduardo
has led initiatives focused on mentoring and supporting underrepresented students.
His work centers on improving student success and retention through innovative teaching
practices, including peer mentorship models that empower upper-division students to
mentor their first- and second- year peers.
Spring 2024
Thursday February 29, 2024
Mary Pilgrim, San Diego State University
Thursday March 14, 2024
Laird Kramer, Florida International University
Thursday April 4, 2024
Susan E. Shadle, Boise State University
Mary Pilgrim, San Diego State University
Mathematics Graduate Teaching Assistant Preparation for Teaching through the ELITE PD Program
Abstract:
Mathematics graduate teaching assistants (MGTAs) make up part of both the current and future teaching force at the undergraduate level; however they are often not adequately prepared to teach in engaging, inclusive, and equitable ways. Without robust professional development (PD) for teaching that focuses on active, engaged teaching practices, MGTAs often replicate the lecture-based teaching practices that they have experienced and observed as students. The ELITE PD project aims to implement and study a PD program for MGTAs focused on engaged learning, inclusive teaching, and equity (ELITE PD). Spanning multiple semesters, the ELITE PD program is being implemented with cohorts of MGTAs across three institutions. In this presentation, I will share the ELITE PD program model, an overview of the research, contextual adaptations, and an example activity.
Establishing a new standard of care for calculus instruction
Laird Kramer, Florida International University
Abstract:
The Catalyzing Change in Calculus (C3) Project developed and rigorously tested the Modeling Practices in Calculus (MPC) curriculum and pedagogy for Introductory Calculus at Florida International University. MPC is a comprehensive instructional approach that promotes ambitious teaching practices, fosters students' use of the practices of mathematicians to learn calculus and embeds culturally responsive instruction into an active learning calculus course. A large-scale pragmatic trial with randomized student allocation was used to compare the MPC instructional approach to traditional, lecture-based instruction. A sample of 811 undergraduate students were studied across 32 sections taught by 19 instructors over three semesters. Large effect sizes were consistently measured for student learning outcomes in the MPC sections, demonstrating a new standard for calculus instruction and increased opportunities for completion of STEM degrees. The talk will summarize the MPC approach, share the experimental strategies and methods, and provide insights on potential future growth and opportunities.