Giving Compass' Take:
- Sonia Fernandez reports on the importance of empathy for STEM learning success, particularly for marginalized students.
- How can donors and funders support an empathic approach to STEM learning success, particularly for women, people of color, and people at both intersections?
- Learn more about key issues in education and how you can help.
- Search our Guide to Good for nonprofits focused on education in your area.
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In a paper in the journal Schools: Studies in Education, UC Santa Barbara professor Sharon Tettegah and collaborators assert that accessible, adaptable, and supportive content that incorporates diverse ways of knowing and empathy to support STEM learning success and “create a more inclusive and effective educational experience for all.”
“Some people love going in and listening to a lecture and taking notes. For other people, talking heads just don’t cut it; they want to see other representations,” says Tettegah, a psychologist by training who directs the Center for Black Studies Research (CBSR), has a faculty appointment in the College of Creative Studies and holds positions at the computer science department, the Center for Responsible Machine Learning, and the Center for Information, Technology and Society.
“We all have preferences for how we receive or experience content,” she says, regarding STEM learning success.
This user-centered preferences perspective on STEM education is a different approach. Research in the engineering education and other STEM disciplines tend to focus on the presentation of information through lecturing, and the measurement of what is learned through primarily testing using equations and word problems.
Somewhat less understood is how students prefer to receive the content that they are learning. This is the gap Tettegah found herself facing when contemplating the outcomes of programs meant to broaden participation in the STEM fields.
“So I was like, ‘okay, what’s going on?,'” she recalls, regarding STEM learning success. “They’ve (researchers) looked at varying instruction and learning, such as, cooperative learning and they’ve brought in remedial courses.”
Despite all that, some women and people of color continue to lag in some STEM fields, such as engineering and math, dropping out of programs before they can turn them into careers.
There are several reasons for this, say Tettegah and collaborators. In their paper, they cite “inadequate financial investments across school systems,” and “a lack of diverse representations of content.”
Read the full article about empathy and STEM learning success by Sonia Fernandez at Futurity.