Culturally Responsive Education to Enhance STEM (CRE2STEM)
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Project Description
The CRE2STEM program represents a transformative change in STEM teacher education, engaging teachers from Rochester city schools, community leaders, and URMC investigators to support high school students in pursuing successful careers in science, ultimately enhancing the diverse applicant pool. CRE2STEM will transform teachers’ abilities to deliver culturally responsive STEM education with scientific evidence for contextualizing STEM education to the experiences of their students with racism, discrimination, health disparities, and lack of inclusiveness in their communities.
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Abstract
The CRE2STEM program intends to contextualize STEM education to the culture, experiences, barriers, and realities of students in their communities. Teachers will be empowered with experiential learning with URMC investigators from biomedical and population health sciences to provide real-world content, resources and consultation to inform the STEM curriculum development. Community partners will facilitate visits and interactions with agencies and organizations engaged in addressing health disparities, low academic performance in high schools and workforce development to inform a culturally responsive classroom education in STEM. Ultimately, our hypothesis is that these two elements will impact : 1) the educational system, and teachers culturally responsive teaching practices, and 2) increase the pool of diverse students with competencies in STEM motivated and interested in careers in STEM and healthcare. To ensure this contextualization, all elements of CRE2STEM will be facilitated within an equal, trusted, dedicated, cohesive, organic, and vetted collaboration with community partners in education known as the Educational Advisory Committee. The CRE2STEM intervention follows diversity, equity, and inclusion principles as the cornerstone to achieve the equality and inclusivity that NY state students need to succeed. Aim 1: Curriculum Development to Enhance Culturally Responsive Education in STEM. This aim will be achieved through a two-week CRE2STEM Summer Institute for 20 STEM teachers (2 cohorts of 10) from RCSD, year-long professional development, and experiential opportunities in the community and with URMC investigators for two consecutive years. Aim 2: Assess the implementation of the CRE2STEM intervention on STEM teachers and students. By supporting teachers with content, pedagogical tools, and the delivery of culturally responsive STEM curriculum materials aligned with NGSS, the CRE2STEM educational program aims to create a stronger connection between students from diverse backgrounds and their STEM experiences. Aim 3: Disseminate classroom resources and a video-based library of exemplary culturally responsive STEM lessons and shared experiences of teachers in a web-based platform.
