(pt.2) How STEM Professors Can Close Equity Gaps

Again, I'm super excited about this because the research is, you know , impeccable. Honestly. I mean, like I said, it's, it's, it's a huge sample that they use at one institution. They fixed a lot of variables in the space and then they focused on STEM, right? And they focused on stamina .

It's about effective teaching, right? What , what makes us more effective teachers, right? That's what the article is really about. However, the focus is on STEM, right? They isolate it STEM in order to do some things, right? I mean look, this is mathematical thinking. This is us trying to eliminate as many variables as possible as we're going about all of this, right?

Because if we start comparing STEM with the humanities, well whatever difference happens in that space, you'll just say it was like, well, it's just because it's the difference between STEM and the humanities. Right? When they isolated STEM, they weren't picking on STEM.

They were just saying, it's like, look, if we just focus in on STEM, then maybe we can actually try to, you know, we control for that variable of what discipline this is where , well , what housing does this, these disciplines are, we can control for that. Maybe we can get to some better answers. So let's talk about the effect of a growth mindset and really just located in STEM. Because quite honestly, you're going to find fixed mindset people everywhere.

I'm sure there are fixed mindset people in the arts and humanities. I'm sure that the fixed mindset people in the, in the social behavioral sciences and the health sciences and whatever else is out there. Yes. It's like I , I guarantee you that there are definitely people with teachers with fixed mindsets in those spaces. And so and so this is not about STEM. This is about teaching. And yet when we focus on STEM, we get to really see this, right?

That half of the challenge of closing equity gaps is to develop a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset mindset for STEM professors. All right. I don't know what the effect is in the other disciplines. What we know is that when you isolate STEM though, right? We're not talking about any other disciplines, we're talking about STEM, right? Is that STEM folks can account for half of their equity gap through their mindset, right? Through their mindset. Right? And so then, so let me remind us, right?

So a fixed mindset believes , right? Fixed mindset professors would endorse the idea that intelligence and ability are fixed, right? Uh , of the , of the students, well and then themselves of course are fixed in eight qualities that cannot be changed or developed very much, right?

While growth mindset professors endorsed the idea that the ability that that there , that the student's ability is, is malleable, it's changeable, and it can be developed to persistent good strategies and quality mentoring. And so then this research also found out something I think that is very crucial to understanding why they wanted to focus in on STEM is that they found that , um, that the fixed mindset believes are not concentrated within any certain STEM discipline.

So, in other words, it means that the physics folks are not more fixed mindset or more, not more likely to be fixed mindset professors then let's say chemistry folks, right? The biology folks are not more likely to be a fixed mindset then astronomy folks, right? So it's all, this is the argument, right? That is all that STEM produces this out of their culture, a fixed mindset. They produce this culture, right? They're not, they're not a victim of this culture. They produced this culture.

They own what these , they , they own this mindset if you would. Right? And so then again, right when we're talking about the , the , the , the STEM culture, right? That STEM culture promotes a fixed mindset, right? It promotes a culture of genius, right? Like you need to be a genius in order to do STEM, you need to be a genius to do this versus a growth mindset, right? And so what, what should be the focus?

So with this research, they're , they're saying it's like, look, the , the , the actual professor needs to be the focus here. Like really the actual professor trying to change your department's culture is not as effective as changing your own mindset, right? To try to change a department's mindset is not as important as changing your own mindset. Because that was, again, that's what the research says.

It says that your department's mindset doesn't have as much of an effect as the professor's mindset of , of the student when they're teaching them. Right? And so again, this is personal, right? It's like you don't need to change the world. You don't even need to change a department. You just need to change your mindset. Right? And again, this is, this goes so far beyond STEM and yet that was the focus because this is it. This is something very specific to the space, right?

And you know, so when we're talking about this, I don't know if this is going to hurt or going to help, I really don't. But I was thinking about an analogy. I was really thinking about an analogy of thinking to myself as like, okay, let's say someone said that they were a farmer, right? That someone was a farmer.

If they said that they were a farmer and then you asked and then you start talking to them and you find out that this farmer really doesn't believe that anything that they can do is going to really drastically affect the crops that they're, that they're, you know, taken care of. Right. Is that, you know, pretty much whatever gets produces is a matter of luck. Um , it's a matter of how strong the wheat is, right? To how strong the seed is.

Um, and that does really not a whole bunch that you can do as a farmer to help increase the crop. Now, when I see it like that, I mean, think about that. If you found a farmer that didn't believe that what they did really had an effect on how much of a crop was produced, would you even call that person a farmer? I mean, maybe they are. Maybe they just owned a farm and that's why they're a farmer and whatnot . But it's like, are they really a farmer?

Because when I think about a farmer , it was like, look, you, you, you get into the science of it, you get into the, you know, it was like w w what , what works better? What kind of plow works better, what kind of seed works best? What kind of watering system do I need? What kind of environment works, what kind of, what kind of seeds work best in, in, in the environment that we have, you know, type of deal. And I get that right.

It's like, and so I th I think about that and then I think about professors that think that have a fixed mindset, most likely they're thinking, it's like, look, there's really not a whole bunch that I could do because students' abilities are fixed. And I'm like, I don't, I don't get how you can be . Well I get how you can be a professor and be that, but I don't get how you can be a teacher and think that as soul , that is what it is.

And you can be, like I said , you can be as upset about me as you want to be right now, but that is, that's something that I'm going to ask you as a question. If you come at me with a fits mindset, I'm going to be like, how are you a teacher? And if you say, well, I'm a professor and so it really doesn't matter. I was like, okay, cool. Well, as long as you're , well, I'm not going to be cool about that.

But if that's what your institution values or whatever, why can't do anything about that before the people who do value teaching you, there's something that you could do. There is something that you can do and that is developed as growth mindset. And so then when we're, when we're talking about this, right, it's like, so, so then what would be the effects of a professor that has a fixed mindset or not even a professor, but, right .

Even the discipline and whatnot, what would be the effect, right? What , what does this look like? And so , um , you know, the , this research, it focuses, it talks about the structure of your courses, right? Is going to affect how you communicate. Let's think about this, right? So let's go going back to the top, the structure of our courses, right? And so this is something is really , uh , perplexing me and I am, and maybe I'm just the wrong one in the space, but I'm going to go in anyway.

I'm going to go in any way , you know, if you have an intro class and in the same way that I have an intro to sociology class and you have an introduction to chemistry class or an introduction to biology class, to me when it comes to teaching, I know I should know right? When I'm teaching an intro class that there's a lot of students who are not, who are non majors in the space, right? They're taking this class as an elective of some way, shape or form.

And for me, when I'm thinking about this, right? Like if you have a fixed mindset, if your , if your space is very fixed in his mindset, then you're thinking that it's only going to take, you have to be exceptional, you're going to have to be exceptional and in order to be in this discipline. And so then how do you teach?

Well, this is something that continues to perplex me is that a lot of these intro classes in the, in the STEM , uh , spaces that they focus on math a whole bunch and, and I know already know people are gonna push back on me. It's like, look, math, math is math and I get it. But that's the thing that most people are scared of, right? Most people are afraid of math as so then are afraid or have really bad experiences and as space I'm at whatnot.

And so if you really want to get someone interested in your discipline, maybe the first thing that you want to show them is not math. How about that? How about we start with not math, because for me as a sociologist, like, look, I'm going to tell you straight up, it's like I'm trying to recruit more people to become sociologists. I want more students to become sociologists . I really, truly do want that. And so when we talk about sociology, I don't jump in with all the terms and stuff like that.

That's not where, that's not where I need to go to. I don't know how excited a student is going to be about August comp or a Miele Durkheim or Karl Marx or WB the boys or you know, Margaret Mead and whoever is, you know, or you know , um, or Patricia Hill Collins or whatever, all of our theorists and everything. And it's like, I don't know how many students are going to be interested in that.

What I do know is that students want to talk about their social world and what I do then in my intro classes, let them talk about their social world and then show them as they're talking about it, about all the sociology that's in the thoughts that they have already. Right. And , um, because I , I truly believe it shouldn't take an exceptional person read an ex , a person of exceptional intelligence to understand why your disciplined is useful and valuable and things like that.

It truly shouldn't take an exceptional intelligence to understand that. Right? Um, I mean, shoot, if we're talking about chemistry, chemistry in the water that we drink, right? There's chemistry in the water that we drink. There's , there's physics and football, right? And so it's like your discipline is everywhere. Literally. It's everywhere. And yet you choose like to show like the ugliest side of it, the math side of it that's really like by , it's a weed out.

It's like you're weeding everyone out versus just trying to inspire people to want to work harder for their passion. And this is how I can say this for confidence because of my, when, when I became an ethnic studies major, when I was at UCS D , um, I was a math major at MiraCosta. I had my AA in mathematics and the re what part of the reason why I was focused on math is because , um, I thought I was a bad writer. And , um , actually I was a bad right .

I ain't gonna say I thought it was like I was a bad writer and I was a slow reader. I'm still a slow reader still to this day. And um, but when I, when I took ethnic studies, my first ethnic studies class with professor Eunice spiritual, amazing, amazing. Later on became my mentor and everything. Um, I fell head over heels in love with ethnic studies. I fell so in love with it that I didn't care that it was reading and writing intensive.

I just cared that this was a discipline that actually explained a lot of things in my life and in the , in the social world that I saw as. So I was like, okay, I'm going to do whatever. I'm fired up right now. I'm fired up, so I'm going to do whatever it is I need to do in order to do, to do this discipline because I love it. Right? I love it. I love it. And so I'm willing to work hard for it. I'm passionate about it, so I'm willing to work hard for it.

And so if we were to take those approaches in the way that we structure these introduction to STEM courses and whatnot, not start with the math, start with your passion. Why did you fall in love with chemistry in the first place? Why did you fall in love with biology in the first place? When did you realize that this was your passion and your center? When did you realize that? What were you looking at? What were you doing?

I guarantee you that 99.99% of us didn't become STEM majors because of some mathematical equation or because you balance some, you know, some elements or something like that. I guarantee you that that is for 99.99% of us that that's not where you started, right? And so you start with your passion because that's what the students are looking for. They're looking for that passion. They identify with that passion.

And when you say, Hey, this is why I'm excited about this, I am passionate about this discipline. And here's why. When you say the why part, it better not be some equations popping up on the damn board. It better be about yo, I was really excited about in chemistry. I don't, well I don't know what you were excited about cause I'm not a chemistry major. I could, I could tell you all day why it was, why ethnic studies major , um, and whatnot and what I was excited about.

But it's like, I don't know what you were excited about that got you into that space. But like I said, but I'm , I'm 99.999% confident that it wasn't because you saw some math equations go up on the board now for the math major people that might be different. And so the , the, the , that that may be different and yet at the same time I would even beg the question in that space, is that really what you were excited about? Right.

As so then, right, and now, right, if you focus on chemistry, like in a water that we drink, man, you could talk about racism and classism and the water that we drink right. With, with Flint, Michigan, like if you wanted to take it to that other level, you could talk about , um , you could talk about sexism and homophobia in football. Now remember, you don't have to do it.

And yet at the same time when you're trying to make something culturally relevant is it's really hard to make a math problem culturally relevant, but you can, right ? When you, when you start with something culturally relevant, you can bad track into the math of it or the science of it, right? But to start with the science of it and then expect, expect people to get excited about the tail end of it.

It's like no, start with the tail end first and then backtrack into the math stuff because then people will be excited about the discipline and then they might be able to change their outcome based on that. Then if they're excited about it, they're willing to work hard, right? And they're excited about it. They're willing to , um, you know, the , if you want to get people excited about something, then maybe you're willing to mentor them, right?

These are the things that growth mindset professors believe will make a difference. And they do. They do flat out. They do. So not only are we talking about the structure of your course, right? But we're also talking about how we communicate to students, right? This is the second part. And whatever it is that you communicate to students is either going to be encouraging or discouraging, right? It's like, you know, let's think about that.

And so then if you're a fixed mindset professor , um, here's something to think about, right? It's like what would that even sound like? Um, I had this professor , um , he was in my math class or he was taught a math class and whenever a student got a question wrong, he would always say a , your bridge just collapsed. And he would kind of say it. I think he was intending it as a joke, but I'm going to tell you there's not a lot of people in that class who took that as a joke.

Now please don't misunderstand. I thought it was funny as hell because he was never talking to me cause I was doing well in my math classes. But for the students who weren't doing well, that wasn't a joke. That was them being told that they were stupid. You also would say things like , um, that's a math, you know, 20 question, we're in math one Oh three and so that's, you know, that's not an acceptable question in this space. I'm not going to answer it.

Like literally he would say things like that. And please don't misunderstand. There's a time, a place for every question, there's a, there's a better space to ask certain questions and whatnot. But when he said that, and when he said that, he was literally just saying that was a stupid question. All right. And then when you get into a STEM space, right? And then you have a fixed mindset professor, basically what they just said was there was, you're stupid.

Why am I going to waste my time with you? All right. Now remember, right when we're talking about growth mindset versus fixed mindset and all of this is that, you know, there's, there's students, and this is happening to students and their noodled their bodies, if you will. We're like, we're , we're talking about students here, but some students are affected more by a statement like that than others, right?

And research shows that is those underrepresented minority groups that have a harder time with that because not only are they hearing it from this professor, but they probably heard it from like a lot of their K through 12 teachers and now they're having it set again. And not only that, but then there's all this social reinforcement about underrepresented minorities and their intelligence. And so it's a thing, right? And so this is this , this is a way for us to address our language in a class.

And , um, and I eat . And even if you think that there is some kind of joke that you're saying, you might want to chill on that and really think about what are you really communicating to the students? And please don't misunderstand this. I'm hard on people to , okay, don't you ever misunderstand? Don't everything is like , Oh, he's a software folks. Look, look , I do listen to people. I do listen to the students in there and stories and everything.

Yes. But I don't think that that soft, I think that that's honestly, I think that's just academic and I also think it's part of my job, but I do push hard on on some students, but the students that I pushed hard on are students that I have a relationship with. If I have a relationship with that student, well you know what? I can tell them it's like, look, I think you really mess it up right now and you need to get your life right. So what are we going to do in order to correct this?

But that's only what people that I have a relationship with, right? If I don't have a relationship with, I'm going to say it's like, Hey, you know what? Is everything okay? Because I noticed that you haven't turned in the last few assignments and I'm really concerned about your progress. Right. But if it's somebody I know, Oh yeah, I'll go in on him , I'll go in on him . Especially if I know that they're like horsing around or whatever. Right?

I mean, bro , for real as so, but that's what I mean by right. It's like you can, you can have a fixed mindset and it's not, I'm not even telling you like what to say. What I'm saying is if you're going to say something like that, at least build a relationship with a student. If you're going to say something like super harsh, right? Um , build a relationship with them.

Build that trust up so that when you critique them, you say, Hey, you got to work harder in order to be a chemist, then don't believe you because they have a relationship with you and they'll trust your assessment rather than gesture your overall critique. Right? And so then we also have to remember that the things that we're saying are encouraging, right? They're either encouraging or discouraging. Right.

And you know, when I imagine a fixed mindset professor, well actually I don't have to imagine that I actually experienced this, but I was a TA at the time and um, does teacher , um, he kept on saying this was at USC and, and anytime a student was of getting a D or below, he would literally just tell us, you should recommend a student drops versus Hey, you know what, you should work with that student and see if you can, you know , help them along here because they're struggling.

Again, there is a time and a place for students to drop and to encourage a student to drop a class and yet at the same time it's like, what's the goal here as a teacher? Right. It's like when you're making a statement, not for , in this particular case it was the TA's, but when you're making this statement, what are you really saying to the student? What are you really saying about this student? Right.

And this PR , I guarantee you that the professor didn't know anything about the student, that he was just telling him to drop the students, that he was just telling him to drop. He didn't know anything about them . And so to me, right, this is like the epitome of where a growth mindset, or excuse me, a fixed mindset would just come in and go like, wow, this person is just really bad and why am I going to waste my time with them? Right?

While a growth mindset look this, I don't, I don't know how people are gonna feel about this, but it's like, you know, a growth mindset, it should affect your grading also. So when I think about like things that I can do to encourage and , and to, to, to show students that they can grow it, it can , uh , it can be about grading also, right? As so, as students are doing really poorly in a class, or let's say, you know, over half the class fails a test or something like that, then why not? Right?

If we're talking about growth, right? Why not give students a chance to correct all the mistakes and then explain why they made their mistakes? And then , um, and then at the end, cause this is actually something that I've, I've done. Um, and then at the end tell you three things that they can do better for next time. Right? Um, and then also, and this is to me is just as important as the three things is that also say one thing that I can do to help them do better in the course.

Because think about it, right? If I want, if I have a growth mindset for my students, then that should also mean that I have a growth mindset for me. Like I can become a better teacher, right? And so maybe the most important thing in all of this is literally to believe that we can become better teachers, right? And then if we believe we can become better teachers than we know our students can become better students, we know our students can do better in class.

And so now this is where I would argue that the whole student equity movement grows from right. Not only can we become better teachers, but also students can become better. And, and with that, there's, there's no, there should be no racial boundaries or boundaries around sex, gender, or sexuality or about class or whatever that should determine that should pre determine someone's success in my course. So that's why I asked that last question is for the students to critique me.

Cause I always want to get better. I always want to grow and I'm always willing to listen, right? I'm always willing to listen. That doesn't mean I'm always going to do what they say. I ain't gonna lie to you. It's not like I'm always going to do what they say , um, because there's a reason why I do a lot of the things that I do. And , um, and then it gives me an opportunity to explain why I do what I do. Um, so I think that that really helps balance things out.

And then when they know why you're doing what you're doing and , and you explained that to them , then uh , again, you're building relationship rather than just telling someone that you're stupid or that you know, you're, you're not, you don't belong here. You're not worthy. Right? We're always [inaudible]

If you learned something today that you think would help close your student equity gaps, how long would it take to incorporate this into your classroom? A year, a semester, next month. Today. No matter the timetable, we must commit ourselves to becoming better teachers. Our students deserve it. All of them, not just the ones that are good already.

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