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Integrated STEM education and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) have been often theorized as compatible. However, there has been little research done to understand how UDL is used in real-world integrated STEM classrooms. Our study aimed to understand how current practicing educators in integrated STEM classrooms combine these teaching methodologies. This was done through a combination of interviews and document analysis of lesson plans, and supplementary information. To evaluate what elements of UDL were used in the documents, researchers developed a UDL codebook based off of the 31 checkpoints in the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) UDL guidelines. The goal of the study was to understand how the adoption of UDL could spread across all integrated STEM educators. Therefore, our study viewed the use of UDL in an integrated STEM classroom as an 'innovation' and analyzed our results through Diffusion of Innovation theory. Specifically looking to providing understanding to the 'innovation' through Rogers 5 Attributes of innovations. The study found that all except two UDL checkpoints were proved to be compatible within integrated STEM classrooms, and were categories developed to explain how the participant achieved these checkpoints. The findings also show that not all UDL checkpoints occur at the same frequency. Through Diffusion of Innovation theory, our study showed that Integrated STEM educators believe that UDL is automatically adopted by educators using Integrated STEM teaching methodologies. They expressed problems associated with implementing some UDL checkpoints, and providing overall themes of complexity when implement UDL in an Integrated STEM classroom. / Master of Science in Life Sciences / Integrated STEM education and Universal Design for Learning (UDL) are two teaching methodologies that have been often theorized to be compatible. However, there has been little research done to understand how UDL is used in real-world integrated STEM classrooms. The study aimed to understand how current practicing educators in integrated STEM classrooms combine these teaching methodologies. This was done through a combination of interviews and document analysis of lesson plans, and supplementary information. To evaluate what elements of UDL were used in the documents, researchers developed a UDL codebook based off of the 31 checkpoints in the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) UDL guidelines. The goal of the study was to understand how the adoption of UDL could spread across all integrated STEM educators. Therefore, our study viewed the use of UDL in an integrated STEM classroom as an ‘innovation' and analyzed our results through Diffusion of Innovation theory, which conceptualizes an innovation spread through a population. The study found that all except two UDL checkpoints were proved to be compatible within integrated STEM classrooms, and were categories developed to explain how the participant achieved these checkpoints. The findings also show that not all UDL checkpoints occur at the same frequency. Through Diffusion of Innovation theory, our study showed that Integrated STEM educators believe that UDL is automatically adopted by educators using Integrated STEM teaching methodologies, but when discussing the implementation of specific UDL checkpoints themes about the complexity of the innovation emerged.

<p>This qualitative study was conducted to understand the instructional strategies used by high school integrated STEM (iSTEM) teachers to apply real-world problem solving in their classrooms in the state of Indiana. The problem addressed by this study was the need to understand the instructional strategies employed by iSTEM teachers in their classrooms. Using a basic qualitative approach, data was collected through teacher interviews, classroom observations, and documents. The thematic analysis revealed several themes: (a) there is no single instructional strategy, but teachers adapt their strategies to the context, (b) the importance of preparation using various sources and building on student’s prior knowledge, (c) a focus on asking "why" questions as a priority, (d) the necessity of making group work tangible, (e) the use of modeling as a common strategy, including data collection and analysis, sketching and documentation, (f) the promotion of student independence by being aware and performing tasks independently, (g) the integration of real-world issues to relate learning to student lives, and (h) the challenges posed by time and diversity of student abilities. These findings suggest that iSTEM teachers should be flexible in their approach and emphasize preparation, questioning, modeling, group work, and real-world connections to improve student learning in an integrated STEM approach. The findings contribute to the existing literature on iSTEM teaching and have implications for iSTEM teachers, school administrators, and policymakers. The findings of this study can inform professional development programs for iSTEM teachers and can help school administrators design collaborative and problem-solving learning environments. Lastly, policymakers can use the findings to develop policies that promote the integration of real-world problem-solving into STEM education, thereby contributing to the development of a workforce that is prepared to meet the challenges of the 21st century.</p>

<p>For more than five decades, education scholars and activists have argued for a culturally relevant and nurturing education that reflects students' diverse experiences in K-12 classrooms. Yet, with the most recent national reform on science standards, the call to engage all learners pushed for advancing STEM in the United States, and many science education scholars have problematized such rhetoric. Unfortunately, the inclusionary blanket term like “engaging all learners” and the efforts that lead behind it do not consider the sociocultural realities that young children bring into the classrooms and the negotiation in learning school science. In this three-paper dissertation, I explore how middle school science teachers recognize the sociocultural realities students come with and cultivate a culturally nurturing education in response to the increase of racial, economic, and linguistic diversity within their integrated STEM classrooms. In particular, the aim of this dissertation to understand how middle school science teachers align school science, specifically in teaching integrated science and engineering, to the sociocultural realities of students by centering on the sensemaking of teacher’s lived experience and experiential knowledge. The first study draws on a narrative inquiry case study approach to understand how a middle school science teacher cultivated a culturally sustaining STEM classroom. The research question that guided this study was: How does Mrs. Johnson make meaning of her experiences in making science and engineering learning more culturally relevant and sustaining for her diverse middle school students? Findings from this study illuminates a complex narrative such as the intentionality of making multiple epistemologies explicit in learning science and engineering and the required racial reflexive work for cultivating a culturally sustaining and student-focused STEM classrooms. The findings also highlight challenges Mrs. Johnson faced as she integrates students’ lived experiences and alternative ways of knowing and doing into science and STEM teaching. The second study uses a single-case study approach to understand specific teaching practices that truncated the cultivation of a culturally sustaining education by exploring the opportunities that allowed internalized and interpersonal oppression to perpetuate with the same teacher, Mrs. Johnson. The research questions that guided this study are as follow: In what ways does teaching the GMO and Loon Nesting Platform STEM units foreground individual and interpersonal oppression to manifest? What teaching practices allow these moments of oppression to be pervasive? Findings from this study suggest that oppression becomes pervasive when teaching integrated science and engineering without considering how STEM learning could be irrelevant to students’ lived experiences and the role of power in teaching science. Based on these findings, I developed a year-long virtual professional development program that emphasized teaching integrated science and engineering with a focus on culturally nurturing and asset-based pedagogies. The final study draws on teachers’ funds of knowledge and identity to explore the sensemaking of a rural science teacher as he participates in the professional development program and how the sensemaking of his lived experiences informed his use of asset-based pedagogies. The research question that guided this study was: How do Mr. Jordan’s funds of knowledge and identity inform their use of asset-based pedagogies in reform-based, rural science classrooms? Findings from this study highlights Mr. Jordan’ funds of knowledge and identity informing his use of culturally responsive and relevant pedagogies. Implications of the third study proposes generational cultural wealth as a theoretical framework as one way teachers can begin aligning school science to students’ sociocultural realities. The final chapter of this dissertation presents a synthesis across the three studies and a summary of the implications for teaching.  </p>

<p>  </p> <p>Food system STEM projects have the capacity to motivate high school students in urban schools. This study explored food as a context to engage students because everyone interacts with food on a daily basis and has had cultural experiences related to food. An integrated STEM approach in combination with a systems thinking approach challenged students to make transdisciplinary connections, view problems from different perspectives, analyze complex relationships, and develop 21st-century and career skills (Hilimire et al., 2014; Nanayakkara et al., 2017). The purpose of this study was to describe and explain the relevance students perceive in Ag+STEM content by measuring high school students' self-efficacy, intrinsic value, attainment value, cost value, and utility value after participating in a food system STEM project. The study was informed by Eccles and Wigfield’s (2020) Situated Expectancy Value Theory. The convenience sample of this study was comprised of high school students from metropolitan area schools. High school students completed a food system STEM project with a food system context. Quantitative data was collected using the developed Food System Motivation questionnaire. Data were collected through a retrospective pre-test and a post-test. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data including means and standard deviations. Relationships were explored by calculating correlations.</p> <p>There were four conclusions from this study. First, high school students were somewhat interested, felt it was important to do well, and agreed there were costs regarding participation in the food system STEM project. Second, high school students reported higher personal and local utility value motivation after completing the food system STEM project. Third, high school students were somewhat self-efficacious in completing the project tasks and completing the project tasks informed by their cultural identity and experiences. Fourth, intrinsic value and attainment value motivation (independent variables) were related to personal and local utility value motivation and project and cultural self-efficacy motivation (dependent variables). Implications for practice and recommendations for future research were discussed.</p>