Bryan Wee’s research while affiliated with University of Denver and other places

Background A growing part of the efforts to promote student engagement and success in undergraduate STEM are the family of Student Support and Outreach Programs (SSOPs), which task undergraduate students with providing support and mentoring to their peers and near-peers. Research has shown that these programs can provide a variety of benefits for the programs’ recipients, including increased academic achievement, satisfaction, retention, and entry into STEM careers. This paper extends this line of inquiry to investigate how participation in these programs impacts the undergraduate STEM students that provide the mentoring (defined here as undergraduate mentor-teachers or UMTs). We use activity theory to explore the nature of metacognition and identity development in UMTs engaged in two programs at a public urban-serving university in the western USA: a STEM Learning Assistant program and a program to organize middle and high school STEM clubs. Constructs of metacognition and identity development are seen as critical outcomes of experiential STEM inreach and outreach programs. Results Written reflections were collected throughout implementation of two experiential STEM inreach and outreach programs. A thematic analysis of the reflections revealed UMTs using metacognitive strategies including content reflection and reinforcement and goal setting for themselves and the students they were supporting. Participants also showed metacognitive awareness of the barriers and challenges related to their role in the program. In addition to these metacognitive processes, the UMTs developed their science identities by attaching different meanings to their role as a mentor in their respective programs and setting performance expectations for their roles. Performance expectations were contingent on pedagogical skills and the amount and type of content knowledge needed to effectively address student needs. The ability to meet students’ needs served to validate and verify UMTs’ role in the program, and ultimately their own science identities. Conclusion Findings from this study suggest that metacognitive and identity developments are outcomes shaped not only by undergraduate students’ experiences, but also by their perceptions of what it means to learn and teach STEM. Experiential STEM inreach and outreach programs with structured opportunities for guided and open reflections can contribute to building participants’ metacognition and enhancing their science identities.

This study presents an ‘education for sustainability’ curricular model which promotes science learning in an elementary classroom through equity pedagogy. A total of 25 fourth-grade students from an urban, public school in Denver, Colorado participated in this mixed-methods study where concept maps were used as a tool for describing and assessing students’ understanding of ecosystem interactions. Concept maps provide a more holistic, systems-based assessment of science learning in a sustainability curriculum. The concept maps were scored and analyzed using SPSS to investigate potential differences in learning gains of English Language Acquisition (ELA) and Gifted/Talented (GT) students. Interviews were conducted after the concept maps were administered, then transcribed and inductively coded to generate themes related to science learning. Interviews also encouraged students to explain their drawings and provided a more accurate interpretation of the concept maps. Findings revealed the difference between pre- and post-concept map scores for ELA and GT learners were not statistically significant. Students also demonstrated an increased knowledge of ecosystem interactions during interviews. Concept maps, as part of an education for sustainability curriculum, can promote equity by providing diverse learners with different—yet equally valid—outlets to express their scientific knowledge.

The need for a more robust, well-trained STEM workforce is becoming increasingly acute in the U.S., and there is a clear need to recruit and retain a larger and more diverse population of undergraduate STEM majors. While numerous efforts to improve engagement and support in the traditional P-16 classroom have been implemented successfully, it is also critical to explore other types of activities that have potential for high impact. The STEM Club Leadership for Undergraduate STEM Education, Recruiting and Success (STEM-CLUSTERS) project at our large public research university in the Mountain West presents an outreach model to engage undergraduate STEM majors in developing and facilitating activities in local middle and high school STEM clubs. Through case studies, built upon data from reflective journals and semi-structured interviews, the project has identified a number of benefits to the first cohort of participants, which is comprised of eleven undergraduate students operating in interdisciplinary teams across five schools. In this paper we describe the essential elements of our outreach model and suggest benefits related to undergraduates’ content knowledge, metacognition, communication skills, and identity as a future STEM professional.

This study explored educators’ perceptions of green school practices in the USA using an online survey to address the larger issue of what it means to be “green” in an educational context. A total of 93 green schools from 27 states in the USA returned a completed survey. SPSS was used to analyze educators’ perceptions of green school practices based on the following variables: public school governance (regular/charter schools), setting (urban/suburban/rural), experience (number of years operating as a green school), and survey scores (educators’ perceptions implementing a set of green school core practices). We found a positive relationship between survey score and experience. There was also a significant difference in survey scores between regular and charter schools. However, there were no significant differences between survey scores from urban, suburban, or rural schools. Implications for education reform in the USA and future research directions are discussed.

As our understanding of complex environmental issues increases, institutions of higher education are evolving to develop new learning models that emphasize synthesis across disciplines, concepts, data, and methodologies. To this end, we argue for the implementation of environmental science education at the intersection of systems theory and service learning. A tight coupling of systems theory and service learning provides learners with the knowledge and skills required to tackle contemporary social-environmental challenges. The tangible benefits of a systems theory—service learning (STSL) curriculum occur in two principal learning areas: increased knowledge breadth and depth. Systems theory requires a broad assessment of social and environmental changes, whereas service learning promotes a brand of research and teaching resulting in a deepening of knowledge through field immersion. We present the tangible benefits of this deepening and broadening process along three axes: appreciation, research methods, and communication.