A STEM Community of Practice Building Confidence With Digital Learning and Evidence-Based Teaching

This fall, nearly 800 students in college math courses around the country will benefit from how their instructors learned together over the summer to make their courses more inclusive through digitally enabled evidence-based teaching (DE-EBT) practices.

“Equity-Minded Teaching Through the Lens of Digitally Enabled Evidence-Based Teaching Practices” was the theme of a community of practice of educators who engaged weekly in virtual discussions from May to July. The group included STEM instructors from two-year colleges and public and private four-year institutions, as well as an associate dean.

A community of practice is a group of professionals who gather to develop understanding and insights about their field. This group was facilitated by Christine Latulippe, Community Manager for Transform Learning, which offered the opportunity in partnership with Every Learner Everywhere®. Transform Learning is an online resource for educators to learn about DE-EBTs.

The summer 2025 community of practice (which will be followed up by another this fall that is accepting registrations now) shared their experiences implementing technology for more effective teaching and learning, and confronted misconceptions that evidence-based teaching practices don’t align well with STEM subjects. Through weekly readings, prompts, and asynchronous online discussion, the group explored ideas for integrating digital tools to  support evidence-based teaching.

Community work like this potentially will have an immediate impact on hundreds of students in the gateway courses the participants teach each term, including algebra, statistics, precalculus, calculus, and liberal arts math. “For any change an instructor is thinking about making, that’s one more student this fall who decides to stick with their STEM major because they feel more included,” Latulippe says.

“These conversations about creating a sense of belonging or helping students use metacognition to understand how to succeed pull back the curtain for students and let them be more fully a part of the academic community.”

Encouraging every learner

For example, one way to foster a sense of belonging that the community discussed is for the instructor to record and post a welcoming introductory video, perhaps with some personal notes, that students can refer to throughout the term.

Other key concepts the group worked on were using technology to communicate clearly about expectations in the course and what students need to do to succeed (i.e., instructional transparency) and to provide opportunities for peer collaboration with intentional guidance on how to participate Community participants also shared many examples of ways they use technology for interventions or shoutouts to help students monitor their own progress.

Latulippe says STEM faculty often mistakenly assume the DE-EBTs are less compatible with their fields than other academic disciplines. This stigma, she says, makes gathering to discuss ideas, research, and personal experiences important.

Feedback from participants following the eight-week program shows the value of offering this opportunity. “There were two people who said, almost exactly, that the most useful aspect of the community was this environment to explore ideas,” Latulippe says.

“It encouraged them to look at things and share experiences, and it created a space for those conversations.”

Building the fall 2025 community of practice

Although the summer 2025 community of practice is complete, its impact will continue as participants use what they learned in their own classrooms. In fact, all of those offering feedback about the group’s work reported that it would influence their future work.

And the community of practice’s reach will expand even further as participants contribute their ideas to the growing examples library on Transform Learning. (Contributors are eligible for a $500 stipend.)

The next community of practice, scheduled from September–November 2025, will again encourage dialogue about DE-EBTs in STEM courses and invite submissions to the Transform Learning site. Participants will be eligible for a stipend upon full participation in the CoP.

Attendees of an upcoming webinar on September 17, Redefining Student Success through Data-Informed Instruction and Activating Prior Knowledge, will also hear more about DE-EBTs and the community of practice. Registration for that event and for the fall community of practice is underway.