Diversity Working Group
Vision Statement
That students from all backgrounds see a path to becoming a STEM teacher.
Resources Developed By Working Group
(Acrobat (PDF) 680kB Mar11 19) WWU STEM Teacher Preparation Diversity Landscape Analysis Question Summary.pdf (Acrobat (PDF) 680kB Mar11 19) - Creating An Inclusive Landscape Analysis: A Tool for STEM Teacher Preparation Programs
(Acrobat (PDF) 132kB Mar5 19) Diversity Inclusion with a Targeted Universalism Approach-Blank Form.pdf (Acrobat (PDF) 132kB Mar5 19) - Creating an Inclusive Landscape Analysis: A Tool for Disciplinary Working Groups
(Acrobat (PDF) 98kB Mar5 19) Creating an Inclusive Landscape Analysis A Tool for Working Groups.pdf (Acrobat (PDF) 98kB Mar5 19) - Diversity Inclusion with a Targeted Universalism Approach
Watch a ~6.5 minute video (higher speeds and pause are possible) introducing the NextGen STEM Diversity Working Group's framework and exploring how your Implementation Team and Working Group can benefit from their work.
Key Goals and Objectives
Use the following links to explore more about this working groups goals and their steps to achieve them.
Goal 1: Engage minoritized communities
Continually engage minoritized communities to inform existing agencies (i.e. government, K-12, and postsecondary education) on the development of short and long-term actionable items to enhance STEM opportunities and STEM education careers.
- Objective 1: Identify local, private advocacy groups which can assist with connections to communities.
- Objective 2: Identify local, public service and public schools which can assist with connections to communities.
- Objective 3: Invite representatives from identified organizations to join an advisory group, provide training, and establish norms of equity.
- Objective 4: Develop a calendar of meetings with local private and public groups that aligns with university and college admission dates and benchmarks.
- Objective 5: Develop a set of procedures for connecting with communities and capturing information for communities and public service groups.
Goal 2: Analysis of exclusionary structures, policies, and practices
Provide an ongoing critical analysis of structures, policies, and practices that work to exclude/include minoritized communities across rural, suburban, and urban contexts in Washington state.
- Objective 1: Analyze education pipeline data and identify achievement gap (opportunity gap) between traditionally and emergent minoritized groups and their counterparts annually.
- Objective 2: Identify schools and programs that are narrowing the achievement gap between historically and emergent minoritized groups and their counterparts annually.
Goal 3: Critical framework
Develop insights and draw upon the voices and experiences of youth, families, educators, and local communities to identify community-based and culturally responsive, relevant, sustaining, and revitalizing approaches to enhance equity, social justice, and diversity in the STEM teaching workforce and STEM education.
- Objective 1: Facilitate and develop understanding and fluency in the application of critical frameworks that challenge the structural, systemic, and institutional policies and practices that serve to silence and exclude minoritized communities within and outside of STEM.
- Objective 2: Work to center, and foster critical engagement with, the voices and experiential knowledge of youth and communities disproportionately excluded from the STEM workforce.
- Objective 3: Synthesize the application of critical frameworks with the experiential knowledge of minoritized youth and communities to develop context-specific strategies and practices for naming and overcoming barriers to STEM access.
Goal 4: Community knowledge capture
Work alongside communities to identify successful strategies and place-based approaches to recruit, retain, develop, and support the STEM teaching workforce.
- Objective 1: Select and invite communities, considering a workable number and a fair representation of all groups.
- Objective 2: Identify strategies and place-based approaches that work, considering strategies and approaches that are flexible and general enough to succeed in many contexts.
Goal 5: Landscape Analysis support
Provide support in the short, and long-term reflection on the efficacy of programs and approaches designed to improve access to STEM education and the STEM teaching workforce for minoritized communities.
- Objective 1: Implementation Teams include an assessment of the status quo and disseminate results to college community during landscape analysis
- Objective 2: Based on assessment, Implementation teams set goals for diversifying the STEM teacher pipeline
- Objective 3: Increase accountability by regularly updating and distributing institutional and system-wide longitudinal data on gender and minority status and program toward goals
Working Group Members and Affiliations
Working Group Members
Co-facilitators:
- José M. Rios, UW-Tacoma
- Maile Hadley, Zeno Math
Tier 1:
- Alejandro Acevedo-Gutierrez, WWU
- Susana Flores, CWU
- Tyson Marsh, Seattle University
- Tran Phung, Whatcom Community College
- Ann Renker, OSPI
Tier 2:
- Allison D'Ambrosio, Tacoma School District,
- Gregory King, MESA, UW Seattle (nonactive)
- Shameem Rakha, WSU Vancouver (nonactive)
- Amy Robertson, Seattle Pacific University (nonactive)
Process, Methodology, and Decision Making
A major premise of our diversity efforts is that the current system isn't working for diverse candidates. We've introduced models, checklist, and critical reflection questions for implementation teams and/or working groups to integrate into their strategies.
Diversity in pre-service STEM education goes beyond changing the demographics of those who major in STEM fields and engage in STEM teaching and learning. Diversity in pre-service STEM education involves a reexamination of who is seen as capable of being part of the STEM community, what issues are of importance to diverse communities touched by STEM fields, and how communities can come together to support its members to pursue careers in STEM education. Most importantly, diversity in pre-service STEM education requires a commitment of existing agencies (i.e., government, K-12, and postsecondary education) to the values of communities and to examine and address inequitable structures, policies, and practices to create greater opportunities for communities to create a STEM teaching workforce that reflects the diversity of our state.
- We leverage the Targeted Universalism framework
- We leverage learning from place-based solutions
- We continue to gather supporting literature, stories, research, and examples of models that build a diverse pipeline, in or out of education
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