Publication: ENGAGING FIRST-GENERATION STUDENTS IN CHEMISTRY: RESILIENT AND INCLUSIVE APPROACHES IN HIGHER EDUCATION
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Date
2025-04-17
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Poster
Abstract
This poster presents strategies for creating equitable chemistry classrooms that engage first-generation students. It includes specific examples of inclusive practices and culturally relevant approaches, demonstrating how these methods can be integrated into lessons. Historically underserved students, such as first-generation college students and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) students, in STEM education, often lose interest in STEM fields due to barriers like isolation, inadequate preparation, and prejudice in STEM programs. Social psychology and sociology offer approaches to addressing these challenges. Social psychology typically focuses on individual-level factors such as student engagement, belonging, and achievement, while sociology emphasizes the broader, systemic forces, such as race, gender, and class inequalities that affect STEM education. To address these issues, focusing on "meso-level" interventions, which operate between individual and macro-level (structural) factors, can be a useful solution. These interventions, particularly in faculty and peer instructor development, can help reduce inequalities by addressing both the systemic influences and individual experiences in STEM education. This is especially true in college education of Chemistry, one of the most challenging science subjects for many STEM students. Inclusive pedagogy, which encourages instructors to reflect on the historical and sociological influences on teaching, is a key tool for faculty development because they facilitate a supportive, inclusive environment for minoritized and First-Generation students. Resilient and inclusive interventions and approaches of faculty can interrupt the cycle of inequality in chemistry education, improving student achievement and ultimately influencing broader systemic change. They include multiple aspects such as effectively engaging students and incorporate inclusive practices. For online chemistry education, it is critical to show students the enthusiasm of the faculty considering that there is less face-to-face interpersonal communication.