Katrina Marzetta’s research while affiliated with University of Colorado and other places

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.

Large enrollment undergraduate science courses are often seen as "gatekeepers" and tend to support less-than-ideal pedagogical approaches. Student satisfaction with teaching and learning and gains in student conceptual understanding in these courses is often limited at best. At University of Colorado Denver, the Learning Assistant (LA) Program supports the transformation of these large-enrollment science courses to include more interactive teaching strategies and learning opportunities. We find that students in these LA-supported courses are satisfied with these courses in part because of their use of LAs, primarily during the lecture meeting time. Students do not report using LA support as much outside of course lecture meetings. Further, students in an LA-supported General Biology course also exhibited much larger gains in conceptual understanding. We suggest that future work should investigate cross-group comparisons of cognitive and affective gains by factors such as ethnicity; class; gender; and interactions among students, LAs, and faculty.