{"id":8968,"date":"2025-08-26T08:00:28","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T13:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.everylearnereverywhere.org\/?p=8968"},"modified":"2025-08-26T09:14:05","modified_gmt":"2025-08-26T14:14:05","slug":"a-stem-community-of-practice-building-confidence-with-digital-learning-and-evidence-based-teaching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everylearnereverywhere.org\/es\/blog\/a-stem-community-of-practice-building-confidence-with-digital-learning-and-evidence-based-teaching\/","title":{"rendered":"A STEM Community of Practice Building Confidence With Digital Learning and Evidence-Based Teaching"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cEquity-Minded Teaching Through the Lens of Digitally Enabled Evidence-Based Teaching Practices\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

A community of practice<\/a> 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<\/a>, which offered the opportunity in partnership with Every Learner Everywhere\u00ae. Transform Learning is an online resource for educators to learn about DE-EBTs.<\/p>\n

The summer 2025 community of practice<\/a> (which will be followed up by another this fall that is accepting registrations now<\/a>) shared their experiences implementing technology for more effective teaching and learning, and confronted misconceptions that evidence-based teaching practices don\u2019t align well with STEM subjects. Through weekly readings, prompts, and asynchronous online discussion, the group explored ideas for integrating digital tools to\u00a0 support evidence-based teaching.<\/p>\n

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. \u201cFor any change an instructor is thinking about making, that\u2019s one more student this fall who decides to stick with their STEM major because they feel more included,\u201d Latulippe says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Encouraging every learner<\/h2>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n