Culturally Responsive Teaching in STEM for HSIs

Project Title: Chem 1B, General Chemistry II

Relevance, Motivation, Value

Reflection on Instructional Change:

The practice I implemented is to include three writing assignments about the utility value of chemistry concepts. General Chemistry II is a fundamental yet challenging course. The concepts are abstract, and most of the students are non-chemistry majors. They have to take the course due to major requirements but are often overwhelmed by the difficulty of the course. Intrinsic motivation is positively correlated with student academic achievements, and one method to motivate students is to let them see the relevance of chemistry concepts to real-life experience: the utility value.

The low-context cultral bias I am trying to address is "Science is about discovery; let’s run an experiment to see what happens." By reflecting on the value and relevance of chemistry concepts to real-life experiences, I am making my class more high-context "Science is about discovery; how will knowing the result link to real life?"

Three writing assignments were implemented throughout the semester. There are three in-term exams, and the writing assignments were implemented one week before each in-term exam. The students were encouraged to reflect on the concepts they learned before each exam as a review method of the important chemistry concepts and learning objectives.

The participation in the FLC helped me to pay attention to small details to create more equitable learning experience for students.

**Evidence of Instructional Change**
Instruction for the assignment	Sample student work

**Faculty Bio**
	Yujuan Liu holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry Education and a Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry. She is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry. Dr. Liu teaches general chemistry lectures and general and organic chemistry laboratory courses. Her research interests include (1) developing and evaluating green chemistry experiments for undergraduate laboratory curriculum and (2) investigating student affect (e.g. motivation, self-efficacy, and goals) based on theory-based instruments for interventions to improve student achievement and retention. She is an active member of the Younger Chemistry Education Scholars Committee in Division of Chemical Education of American Chemical Society and has published many conference papers and journal articles on green chemistry laboratory, evidence-based instructional practices, student motivation, and social network analysis.

This work was supported by grant funding from:
	STEM4Equity: US Dept. of Education STEMHSI P031C210012 NSF STEMZone: 1832335 *Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation, US Department of Education, or Sacramento State.