Current Events and meaningful discussions
Field Trip to Amherst College
"The Being Human in Stem (HSTEM) Initiative aims to foster a more inclusive, supportive STEM community by helping students, faculty, and staff collaboratively develop a framework to understand and navigate diverse identities in the classroom, lab, and beyond. Currently offered at Amherst College and Yale University, this project-based course model can be adapted to empower students to investigate issues of diversity in STEM through combining academic inquiry with lasting community engagement on any campus." http://www.beinghumaninstem.com/
Some students, faculty and staff of the Amherst HSTEM Initiative hosted us and introduced us to some of the work that they are currently doing to promote inclusivity and belonging in STEM Fields and STEM classrooms. They're dope.
*Content warning*: Sexual Violence & Survivor reporting
We streamed Dr. Ford's testimony, from the Kavanaugh hearings, live in our class. We used the hearing as a way to introduce hypothesis tests, type 1 errors (false positives), type 2 errors (false negatives), and affirmative consent.
We didn't quite know how it would land. A small number of students expressed apprehension regarding our approach to the course and its disruption to their ability and want to do "pure math" early on. However, the students bought in; we had a great inquiry into how statistics and sampling can help us explore important questions.
Some artifacts from the class are below.
We didn't quite know how it would land. A small number of students expressed apprehension regarding our approach to the course and its disruption to their ability and want to do "pure math" early on. However, the students bought in; we had a great inquiry into how statistics and sampling can help us explore important questions.
Some artifacts from the class are below.
Interpreting Type 1 Errors (false positives) and Type 2 Errors (false negatives) within the context of this particular hearing and judicial decisions in the U.S. court of law immediately prompts students to consider:
- The implications of "innocent until proven guilty" in sexual violence cases in comparison to other types of cases for ,both, survivors and the accused
- The role of an individuals' biases and the importance of context in establishing our relative (dis)comfort with Type 1 errors in relation to Type 2 errors
- What are the social implications of this particular moment and its potential outcomes?
- The potential for the questions one could attempt to explore through hypothesis testing and statistical inferences
Reviewing question four as a class generated a meaningful classroom discussion. Interpreting the meanings of type 1 and type 2 errors for that question, specifically, evoked some very thoughtful considerations about how we could creatively use statistics and sampling to explore how students are keeping each other safe and maintaining healthy peer-to-peer relationships on campus.
We, actually, assigned the students this task for homework in response to a student's contribution to classroom discussion. We hope to foster their eagerness to direct their learning experience in the class (what we see as a component of active learning) by validating students' inquisitiveness and demonstrating that we are happily flexible in what we cover and how we cover it.
Most importantly, the class provided Seth and I opportunities to value students' different types of knowledge that they bought to our space beyond statistics and mathematics; it mattered in our classroom and helped deepen our understanding and engagement with hypothesis testing and the importance of affirmative consent.
A second subquestion emerged early on in the second semester: how can we optimize student buy-in?
We, actually, assigned the students this task for homework in response to a student's contribution to classroom discussion. We hope to foster their eagerness to direct their learning experience in the class (what we see as a component of active learning) by validating students' inquisitiveness and demonstrating that we are happily flexible in what we cover and how we cover it.
Most importantly, the class provided Seth and I opportunities to value students' different types of knowledge that they bought to our space beyond statistics and mathematics; it mattered in our classroom and helped deepen our understanding and engagement with hypothesis testing and the importance of affirmative consent.
A second subquestion emerged early on in the second semester: how can we optimize student buy-in?