Leveraging undergraduate research to identify culturally relevant examples in the anatomy and physiology curriculum.

Despite advances in technology, science, and medicine, STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) communities still face issues of pressing concern that will require solutions that are only possible when interdisciplinary and diverse approaches are considered. Evidence indicates that diverse teams perform better than less diverse teams with higher abilities in complex task challenges, the very kinds of complex tasks that scientists now face (20, 22, 35). Despite this knowledge, diversity in STEM continues to be a pressing issue. Blacks and Hispanics make up only 7% and 6%, respectively, of the overall STEM workforce, whereas women are underrepresented in non-health care STEM fields, representing only 25% of the computer science and 14% of the engineering workforce (15). Extensive research has examined the many and complex reasons for the lack of diversity in STEM (8, 12–14, 19, 20, 42), and, as a result, many prominent national organizations have stepped forward as advocates for educational change. For example, the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (https://www.hhmi.org/science-education/programs/ inclusive-excellence) have invested in various initiatives to address diversity challenges in sciences. These organizations have specifically focused on increasing participation of students of color along with gender diversity in the STEM fields (18, 24, 34). Many institutions have been actively examining their approaches to increasing diversity and inclusion on their campuses (10, 26). One common and comprehensive inclusive approach to help all students find success is culturally responsive/relevant teaching (CRT) (4, 17, 29). CRT was first described in 1994 by Gloria Ladson-Billings, an education researcher, to mean, “a pedagogy that empowers students intellectually, socially, emotionally, and politically by using cultural referents to impart knowledge, skills, and attitudes” (29). Characteristics of CRT may include, but not be limited to valuing and validating students’ backgrounds, using those differences as a strength in group work, using student-centered teaching strategies that allow for all students to be heard, or using diverse curricular materials and/or examples that reflect the backgrounds of your students. In the sciences, an article by Tanner (40) suggested an inclusive and diverse set of pedagogical techniques or “equitable teaching strategies” that are grounded in research on learning. These inclusive teaching practices foster a sense of open communication among all students that is inviting and welcoming to learners from all backgrounds (23, 25, 26, 37, 43). These types of learning environments encourage collaboration between teachers and students to create and sustain environments in which students feel supported as individual learners and are encouraged to express their views and concerns (7). Implementing these ideas are not without challenges, as many STEM educators have had no formal training or exposure to CRT (10, 25). Faculty members may feel that they 1) do not know where to begin considering students’ diverse family heritages, learning styles, and social identities in their teaching; 2) are not sure of how to incorporate culturally relevant examples in class; or 3) as scientists, do not have the expertise in nonscience topics and thus do not feel comfortable discussing them in a classroom. To help ameliorate these concerns, Dewsbury and Brame (10) published a comprehensive interactive online guide (https://lse.ascb.org/evidencebased-teaching-guides/inclusive-teaching) that outlines inclusive teaching practices from a broader perspective. Another CRT approach suggests examining the curriculum. In STEM education, Handlesman et al. (20) noted, in Scientific Teaching, that many engineering programs “offer courses and experiences that teach students aspects of global diversity and inclusivity that will positively affect they abilities as engineers”. However, they also noted that, from a curricular standpoint, the physical and life sciences have been less systematic or universally focused on diversity issues (20). Across a variety of nonscience disciplines, when culturally relevant curricula, examples, teaching, and testing methods are introduced, a broader population of students has shown persistence in a variety of fields (1). In STEM, utilizing culturally relevant examples and experiences in science classrooms helps connect and motivate diverse students to positively affect continued success and performance in those disciplines (26, 32, 37–40). Employing CRT and equitable teaching strategies in STEM classrooms can support student success, but it can also be a very important method for helping STEM students learn early on in their academic careers about the intersectionality of science and sociocultural issues. This point emphasizes the fact that many STEM students enter college with little to no knowledge of the way in which science integrates with broader and more diverse questions of human experience. These students often experience their science courses as discrete experiences that do not integrate with nonscience courses that have historically been the venue for critical examination of socioAddress for reprint requests and other correspondence: T. Favero, University of Portland, MSC 60, 5000 N. Willamette Blvd., Portland OR 97203 (e-mail: favero@up.edu). Adv Physiol Educ 43: 561–566, 2019; doi:10.1152/advan.00023. 2019.