(Re) connecting with our students: embracing diversity to enable student success in STEM

Abstract

The global pandemic has disrupted higher education; with significant impact on student wellbeing and the potential to exacerbate inequities (Dodd et al, 2021). Further, the Australian government’s ‘Job-Ready Package’ to be introduced next year asks universities to prioritise the graduation of students with skills in selected degrees such as STEM and improve the opportunities and academic success for remote and regional students. As STEM educators the pandemic disruptions coupled with a heightened expectation for the success of under-represented students can be an opportunity to reform our STEM curricula, not just for new delivery modes, but for diverse student cohorts. Catering for diversity is not a new concept in tertiary education. It has been core to transition pedagogy, which ask that “academics…leverage the curriculum and its delivery…to make equitably explicit the implicit rules and expectations of disciplinary engagement and success.” (Kift, 2015). The educational research is arguably done, but as academics, do we have the capacity to implement equitable and inclusive STEM education? This workshop will make the implicit explicit as together we discuss, deconstruct, and reconstruct ‘standard’ tertiary STEM classes to give participants practical experience in applying the principles of inclusive teaching through curriculum design.