“Why teaching the weed-out way is dysfunctional for STEM education. What is needed to remedy this?“

Speaker: Representatives from E&ER and Gardner Institute

Research conducted for the (2019) Talking about Leaving Revisited study identified characteristics that distinguish weed-out courses, including ‘hardness’ that is constructed rather that intrinsic, as well as distinctive patterns of grades and courses with high rates of DFWIs. Researchers from the TALR study team and from the Gardner Institute discuss these findings and which groups of students are at risk of switching, relocating, or of dropping out of college altogether after taking a STEM weed-out course: the loss of women, majors from other disciplines, and the intersection of race/ethnicity/class in the loss of under-prepared entrants. The patterned dysfunctional outcomes of the STEM weed-out system point to the urgent need for understanding the faculty belief systems that underpin and perpetuate them.

Before attending: Please read the foreword by Dr. Shirley Malcom to the 2019 book Talking About Leaving Revisited

Zoom Link: https://umich.zoom.us/j/99032920268