Assessment of an Activity to Promote Community Building, Inclusion and Perseverance in Introductory College STEM Courses

• DOI: 10.1096/fasebj.2021.35.s1.02082
• Publication Date: 2021-06-11T00:31:59Z
• Authors: Valentina Alvarez; Julie Bocetti; Adam Matthews; Donald Elmore
• Keywords: 0303 health sciences; 03 medical and health sciences

Community, inclusion, and perseverance are essential to the field of STEM education. To promote these values, we developed two discussion-based activities for implementation in introductory college courses. Both incorporate watching videos that portray scientists telling stories how they became prominent their field, in-class discussions, individual reflection. The first activity addresses diversity, community building, inclusion classroom, while second focuses on student definitions success. These were fully implemented into three sections biology during Fall 2020, with one additional section serving as a control. We assessed effectively addressed learning goals through novel pre-/post-survey incorporated questions from CURE, ASPECT, PITS, Classroom Community Scale addition original questions.