Pace Yourself: Season 2 Episode 2

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Recorded July 30, 2024

Introduction

Being Human in STEM

Claudia De Grandi, PhD

Department of Physics & Astronomy

Claudia De Grandi is Associate Professor of Educational Practice in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Utah. Her scientific interests lie in the area of physics education research and teaching pedagogies. She is involved in several projects aimed at fostering a more inclusive and welcoming environment for students in STEM fields, including the annual course at the U Being Human in STEM.

Transcript:

David Pace 0:00

My name is David Pace, and this is Pace Yourself, a University of Utah College of Science podcast on wellness. Today my guest is Claudia De Grandi, associate professor of educational practice in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Her scientific interests lie in the area of physics, education, research and teaching pedagogies. She’s involved in several projects aimed at fostering a more inclusive and welcoming environment for students in STEM fields.

Claudia, it’s great to have you here. Welcome.

Claudia De Grandi 0:45

Hello. Thank you. I’m excited.

David Pace 0:47

So one of the projects you’re involved in here at the University of Utah is Being Human in STEM, which is hosted by the Center for Science and Mathematics Education here in the College of Science. I was just looking over some of the content that you have in your syllabus, and I was struck by the quote that you also mentioned in a presentation you gave recently at the Science Research Initiative by Karl Rogers. And it goes like this: “Significant learning combines the logical and the intuitive. The intellect and the feelings, the concepts and the experience, the idea and the meaning.” When we learn in that way, we are whole.

So being whole. That sounds like an attribute of wellness that we’ve been talking about here in this podcast. So I’d like to back up a little bit and, first, have you tell me a little bit about this course, which is now in its fourth iteration. Is that correct?

Claudia De Grandi 1:56

We have mplemented it five times, so it will be the sixth time in the spring coming up 2026. So five times at University of Utah. And actually, I taught it also two times previously at Yale University.

David Pace 2:01

At Yale?

Claudia De Grandi 2:02

Yes. And the class actually existed even before. So the first implementation was in 2016. So it’s just been implemented several times at different institutions. So to give some context, you can call it a Being Human in STEM project. I mean, it is a class, but it’s also a network. So I was lucky to be involved when the class was first implemented at Yale University, but the person who started it was Sheila Jaswal, a professor of chemistry at Amherst College back east where I was doing my post-doc work. So this happened during the time some will remember around 2015 when there were similar protests on U.S. campuses regarding issues like situations of discrimination of students, racial injustice. And so students of color especially protested to be more acknowledged and respected on campuses. And so all those protests brought a kind of a need for a dialogue between students and faculty and students and administrators. And that need was even more important in STEM, where, usually, we don’t talk about things like belonging, like feelings, like discrimination, like being upset — emotions and things like that.

So Sheila Jaswal at Amherst College said, “we need to create a space where we are humans in STEM.” And so she created this class, and then it was an awesome idea. And we were nearby and said, oh, we should do it the same. And so that’s how we started at Yale. And since then there has been a growing network at many different colleges. If you go on the website that Sheila brought up, if you do, I think beinghumaninstem.com. Actually, she has the first website. She has like a beautiful graphic that shows how this has kind of expanded to different universities.

When I moved to the U, and it was hiring 2018, my first priority was to bring that class to the U. So it took, you know, one year or so to get the class approved. So it was taught for the first time here in 2020. And since then, every spring. And yeah, I can tell you many more things, but this is sort of the history where we started.

David Pace 4:18

So this program seems to be a structure that attempts to create a space where student wellness can be better achieved. Is that a good way to position your work in the context of general wellness? It’s a space that’s being created for all kinds of work, it sounds like…Can you talk a little bit about what kind of work you’re doing in there with students?

Claudia De Grandi 4:43

Yeah, I mean, I think one maybe metaphor that I just want to bring up often, or just kind of an image, I guess, I would say oftentimes students in STEM are told whoever they are, their identity needs to stay outside the door. Like there’s this idea you enter a big math class or physics class and whatever you are doesn’t matter because science is objective. The teacher is not going to look at who you are because science is objective. And so you just need to leave those things outside the door.

And there’s nothing more wrong than that, in my opinion. And so, back to the quote you brought up before, teaching is something that involves the entire persona, the entire identity of who is the receiver, not just like the objectivity, the content, the information. And so, in terms of wellness, healthy learning includes the entire human being. And so in that sense, for me, being a good teacher means to acknowledge all aspects of students. And so this class wants to remind me and the students that whoever we are is important for the learning process and for the making of science.

David Pace 5:48

So why do you think that happens, in particular, in STEM classes? I mean, you said that there’s this notion that there’s supposed to be objectivity, that it’s kind of clinical and antiseptic and analytical and just in your head, I guess. Where did we get this notion that you had to divorce everything at the door? And are there any … I’m just wondering what the impulse for that was. Is this just laziness that we didn’t want to have to deal with all of the issues that that the human being brings to the classroom? Because obviously they’re going to do that. They’re human, right?

Claudia De Grandi 6:35

That’s a complex question. I’ll try to answer it from different angles. So I think one thing is that, I mean, there is some comfort in knowing that you’re just focusing on objectivity and you don’t have to worry about the human aspects. So I think some of us are drawn to science because of that kind of causality or, yeah, objectivity that you don’t have to worry about all the other parts. But I think what’s embedded in the training as a scientist is that we focus on content.

So usually as a teacher you would just do what you experience yourself, right? So STEM classes tend to be taught just focusing on the content. And so you just repeat as a faculty member, you come in and say, ‘I just do what I experience myself,’ which was we just focus on the content. So I think there’s a tradition that doesn’t speak to that part.

Another part that is, I think, another issue within our culture is that to ‘make it’ in STEM, you need to, like, go to the top and only a few survive. I mean, I keep hearing some of my students say that in other classes somebody tells them the first day of class, ‘Turn around. Two people next to you will not be here at the end of the semester.’ Like, this is terrible. I mean, I need to constantly fight against this embedded, implicit competition that STEM students have with each other, which comes from this idea that only the geniuses that you know, the myth of the genius.

So I think there’s the idea also of being objective, because it sounds like it has to be hard. While that’s not true and from a point of view of, like, accessibility, diversity of learning style, the more we can make the learning of science flexible and adjustable, the more we can welcome different voices. And so that goes again.

I guess that has to do with the objective of weeding-out, that it has-to-be-hard-to-be-science kind of approach.

David Pace 8:22

So, would you say that this is some grown out of, this movement — if you want to call it that — towards bringing the whole self to education in particular, STEM … is it based upon the model of accommodation that we have had with the ADA Disabilities Act, or is that too simplistic?

And, also, the second part of that is would that be a good model for what you’re trying to do?

Claudia De Grandi 8:52

So maybe I think what you’re saying brings me to think about something a bit broader.

So the idea in the universal design for learning is that students will have accommodations because the educational system in which they are part of does not accommodate their needs. This by default is constraining that is in studies to create some universal design for learning. I will bring up the first example of the [sidewalk] curb / ramp was created to allow wheelchairs go down, to pass over the path. And it was the fact that that didn’t only benefit people in a wheelchair but benefited people with a bicycle, with a stroller and someone who is carrying something on wheels.

So the idea of universal design for learning is the idea of making accessibility broadly available to everyone, and that benefits everyone.

So back to your question. I think the idea is that considering the entire person brings more universal design in education and that along those lines, students will not even need accommodations because already the class is structured so that they can succeed as the class is set up. Considering the humanness up front, that already takes care of part of it, I think, but I don’t think [what we’re talking about] is only dictated by this accommodation (ADA) part.

David Pace 10:17

Right. So some of the key ideas that you hope your students will take home with them, well, three in particular that I culled from your website is that science is human made. That’s the first one. What do you mean by that? I mean, I think I know what you mean, but it might be good to actually articulate it because there was this theory, I suppose, at least in my field of study, that there was received knowledge that was just there to be transmitted to somebody or something. That doesn’t sound very human. It sounds very unidirectional. It doesn’t sound like a really creative space where people are bringing or feeling like they can bring something to what I think should be the model of this, which is conversational, right?

So tell me about how science is human made. Why? Why did we ever think that it wasn’t human made? I mean, it is a human product.

Claudia De Grandi 11:20

Yes, absolutely. So just because some of the content we cover in the Being Human in STEM class, that is very interesting to students because they usually don’t hear about that very much in other contexts. So one thing we talk about is implicit bias and in general how bias may impact the publication process. So professors get reviewed and things like that. And so one component is how the faculty members, scientists that in all academic enterprise, still relies on hiring processes and selections. Those are affected by bias. So we talk about implicit bias and how that can impact also students and faculty relationships. So that’s one part of where in some sense the structure with science is made is subjected to biases.

The teaching of science also is also subjected to whatever is the background of the instructor. So, something that I actively try to do in my teaching is being aware of what I know and what I don’t know in front of my students. So, for instance, it’s okay to not know everything. It’s okay to make them aware of that, you know, the limitation of what I present. There are limitations. So for myself and for mostly all of education that we are exposed to in the U.S. is very Eurocentric. We talk about Newton and Galileo and Einstein. They are just one part of the big story. So as much as possible when I teach physics, I talk about also the Islamic Golden Age and all these other discoveries that have been made in other less Eurocentric set up and let them know that what we get to study — what is written on the textbook — is not the full story. I kind of make myself available to show that the story I present to them is only one part of the story, and it’s up to them to keep in mind that that’s not necessarily the full picture. In some sense, presenting science as I mean my science in that I, the physics I teach, let’s say is less dogmatic, but more like this is the best I can do right now. But it doesn’t mean that’s the full picture. So I acknowledge my own limitations.

David Pace 13:24

So it’s not just acknowledging that science is by definition contingent, but that this class that you’re teaching is contingent. That it’s a slice of a much broader picture. And that who knows what might happen in the conversational model that we’re perhaps talking about in terms of our understanding, not only science, but how we exist in this space, in the scientific method.

Claudia De Grandi 13:50

Right, right, which to some extent is what I am trying to teach my students: to be skeptical, to be able to find additional resources. That’s what a scientist does, right? So being able to like, okay, this is one part of the story. Do I need to convince myself that I believe it, and do I have enough resources to kind of continue my research. And so I think that idea of being skeptical and looking for other sources of information is part of, I guess, yeah, being a problem solver.

David Pace 14:19

So in terms of the wellness objective that we’re talking about here, it seems like it’s a two way street in that you’re trying to not only I don’t want to say disrupt, maybe that’s too strong of a word, the notion of what science is, but maybe that is okay to say that, but also to disrupt what it means to be a human. And that tension between those two that you’re both going to be both of those elements, science and being human, are going to be augmented. They’re going to be investigated, they’re going to be probed, and you’re going to walk away from all of this, hopefully with a better sense of who you are and what it means to be human and also what it means to be a scientist in that space So I’m trying to get as it’s kind of a two way street, not only trying to build up science, you’re trying to build up the idea of what it means to be human.

Claudia De Grandi 15:23

Mostly. I think the key idea is that I want students to have the space to do science in a way that they’re comfortable and that implicitly or explicitly must include the fact that they feel welcome. So when I say that we should acknowledge the humanness, it doesn’t mean necessarily that everybody needs to come out with whatever their identity is. Seeing this in a science classroom, but it means but it needs to be such that if they want to share, if they want, they just need to feel that whoever they are is accepted and welcome. And internally that can shift their focus on the actual science because they don’t think that any other of their identities, feelings or other things are a threat because, again, it’s just part of who they are. And everybody belongs in science with whatever characteristic and features they have. So I think what we discuss in the class is the idea of intersectionality and identities. Like all students come with different backgrounds, and they’re all welcome. And I think sometimes, oftentimes, by not acknowledging that there are all these multiplicity — I think I said it right — of backgrounds, we implicitly exclude students. Like you will make a comment in a class and assume, okay, so maybe this thing is not something I should bring up to my classmates.

Creating a space where learning can happen means taking off the stress from other things, making sure you can actually focus on the science and not being aware of what you look, how you speak or who is sitting next to you and just creating a community. I think communities are another very important kind, I would say a key component of this class: that we build community. We have this cookie break where students chat with each other. We share food. STEM students are so thirsty for community, and that’s what we really cultivate in this class is a community between students and faculty members where we laugh, we talk about things. We always play a song at the beginning of class, and that community is also key to science.

David Pace 17:23

Did you say you play a song?

Claudia De Grandi 17:25

Yeah, I do that actually. In all of my classes I play music at the beginning.

David Pace 17:29

What does that do? Sorry to deviate . . .

Claudia De Grandi 17:30

It’s actually very fun. People started, you know, maybe, I don’t know, bouncing around or it just shifts a bit. Yeah, it makes it more playful and makes you like, Oh, okay, I do not expect this here.

David Pace 17:43

Same with food, I would think.

Claudia De Grandi 17:45

Yes. The cookie break is very, very special. And students also like to bring and share, the commonality. Also, I think that relates to like you are sharing something that is not related to science. You know, science context, and that creates those connections and opens up the ability for people to connect on a different level. Before they then connect on maybe harder topics.

David Pace 18:09

I think it also honors what I hear you talking about. It honors different ways, different modalities of intelligence. Might be emotional intelligence. It might be any variety of others. I mean, they seem to be expanding the forms of intelligence the more they study that. But it is true that not everybody learns the same way or is able to find in the same way the space that they need in order to communicate, to express, which at least for me, that’s how I learn, is by sharing stories.

And I noticed that narrative and stories are a very important part of this class. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? Because I noticed that some of the comments that you got from the students just this last year talked about their storytelling experience in the class and how that impacted them. You wouldn’t think that narrative and science would go together, but of course they do, because science is a story, right?

Claudia De Grandi 19:14

Yeah, I would say the students’ stories and narratives are so impactful. You know, we talked about data. We look like the statistics of things happening and trends. So students identify issues in STEM and things they want to work on as part of the class projects. But the student narrative, the personal stories, are the ones you always remember the most because we are human. Those are the ones I will remember in the future. And I will advocate for specific student groups, for instance, or student needs.

But yes, the class is very student-driven, and together, with that, it also empowers students to use their voice to make a point. And it happens in different levels. So they have some writing assignments. For instance, they have a STEM autobiography. Will they talk about their path into STEM, why they chose STEM and why they are in STEM at the moment? They also write on a notepad on something related to STEM that they want to, like, make a point and then the project they develop, that they present at the end-of-the-semester symposium to the campus community. There’s a lot of work in preparing them to give like a public presentation.

They get to practice, and they realize that their voices are strong, and, especially, they learn that those voices are valued because throughout the semester all the classes are discussion-based. We continuously welcome their voices and there isn’t a wrong or right answer. Everything is welcome. Actually, disagreeing and having different points of view are welcome. So you can see the evolution of many of them. They get a stronger voice, and they also end the semester by saying, okay, I actually know that I can make an impact, that as a student I can make a change, and I can speak about the student project if you have more time.

But like all the student projects, on some level they have some impact and are so empowering to students to make changes. It is also very important, and that goes with their own narrative and voice.

David Pace 21:02

So empowerment is coming through for me as kind of a through-line for all of the dimensions of wellness that we’ve been talking about in this podcast and feeling that empowerment and obtaining that or developing it probably comes in a variety of ways. I was wondering if you could give me an example of…

Claudia De Grandi 21:23

Yes, I know where you’re headed.

David Pace 21:24

I can smell the wood burning

Claudia De Grandi 21:25

Yes. Well, actually, this past spring, to me, all the projects relate to some extent to wellness, but actually all of them. I mentioned all of them in which way they relate to student willing to advocate for their own wellness. So we had four projects this past year and those themes kind of came up in the past. One was about financial aid, students want to have better access to scholarship and clearly that relates to wellness. I think one of the dimensions you discuss in the past and other one was really much more at a basic level was about food access. STEM students are hungry too. That was the title of their project. They wanted better access to food options when they’re late on campus taking labs and there aren’t good options, there are notaccommodations and things like that. So they made a point of better food options. Another project was about mental health and burnout, so we collaborated with the counseling center and the stem student wanted to bring awareness of the amount of pressure and stress they experience and they organize some student led events. One was actually a dance party, basically here in Crocker. They just decided in the middle of the week to just have a time for students to come and dance to the stress. They had another event with pizza. So like, did you have like again, creating community places that are for for just connecting. And then another project was about inclusion of LGBTQ plus identities in light of the current changes in the legislation. And so those were also related to wellness because students didn’t feel welcome or safe on campus and they want to bring more positive affirmation. And so those I feel like all those projects were related to some dimensions of wellness.

David Pace 23:12

I think a bit as a science writer here, when I do student profiles, one of the recurring themes is an imposter syndrome, the sense of a hidden curriculum when they arrive, especially first generation students. Have you had experiences with students in that area?

Claudia De Grandi 23:30

Well, absolutely. Well I mean stereotype, threat and imposter syndrome are a topic that we discuss every year in the class. And yes, we kind of go through all as much as possible different identities, as a first generation. We talk about immigration status, we talk about, you know, sort of socioeconomic status. And so.

David Pace 23:47

Gender.

Claudia De Grandi 23:48

A gender, of course, sexual orientations and

David Pace 23:49

Racism,

Claudia De Grandi 23:50

Of course. Yeah, the list continues that actually students are the ones that also bring up. What else do you want to talk about? Of course religion comes up. Yeah. So we did talk about also indigenous identities more recently and so yeah, it’s up to them to see what they want to discuss. But absolutely.

David Pace 24:14

True. It is really student directed in that way

Claudia De Grandi 24:15

Mm hmm. Yes. I learned so much. I mean, the class is different every year, and I love teaching it because I never know really what it goes. And I always learn a lot. So I don’t really say that I teach it. I just make it happen. And it’s a very informs everything else I do in my other classes.

David Pace 24:32

It sounds like they have a project as well as a series of readings that you do and discussions and conversations, things like that. And it sounds like one of the projects was STEM students are hungry too. And are you able to affect change in terms of policies here at the university that might encourage better wellness, access to wellness activities, whether it’s like you say, financial or emotional or mental health?

Claudia De Grandi 25:02

So over the years, it varies. It kind of depends on the project. But so for instance, there was a summer where there was some students so eager to continue their project that we had a little kind of summer internship for them. They continued their project beyond the class because, you know, a semester is a very short amount of time to do a lot. But all of the project has some kind of impact. So I can make some examples. Some projects help build some relationship between some specific offices and students. So back to kind of the idea of the class design that is inclusive and meant for for students includes students. So oftentimes those offices on campus do not actually seek student feedback as directly. So this class helps bridge that gap. For instance, the financial aid group worked closely with the financial aid office to create a better connection with what students see and what they offer. So creating making those bridges. Last year there were also there was a group that was working on bathroom equity, so they made a study seeing how many male and female bathrooms on campus and there were some inequities in some buildings, and that was sent out to different administrators and just kept in mind when they build new buildings. Last year, implicit bias training was an important topic and that so the students produced the material that was used in the future to train teaching assistants or other teaching teams to be more aware of bias. So yeah, I can talk about all of those, but to some extent is up to kind of assessing structure to make sure that those those project get disseminated. But I think they most importantly, they just I feel like students put a finger on something that we don’t wouldn’t know that there is an issue somewhere that without a student perspective we wouldn’t know that is there. So it’s just I think what is very powerful is for them to say, hey, there’s an issue here, and then, you know, they will develop some solution. But how they get carry forward is always then in the hand of like the deans, the administrators, the chairs and the office that show up to this symposium and kind of take feedback. And yes, there have been definitely impact, but they can also continue.

David Pace 27:05

Excellent. It sounds like a very dynamic and a little bit like playing table hockey. You’re not really sure where that puck is gonna go. We’re kind of running out of time here, but I have two quotes that I would like to ask you to read from your students, because what I gathered from our conversation is that this is really about finding your voice. At least I’m sure it’s more than that. But to me, that’s very valuable as a communicator is that you learn, if you find your voice and you find your voice by learning in a safe environment. Anyway, these two on the bottom in the red, I was wondering if you could read those kind of as a cap to what we’re saying, because I think it gives students their voice here in this podcast.

Claudia De Grandi 27:56

Mm hmm. I will be happy to do so. So the first one is: “I found myself engaging in meaningful conversations in a very safe environment that I otherwise would not have participated in. And because of that, I learned the importance of engaging instead of constantly opting out of conversation that were hard to have”. Another quote is: “Take this class. Even if you’re scared to speak out, take this class if you’re white or a person of color. I realized that my thinking on so many topics is racist and harmful, even if they were unintentional”.

David Pace 28:31

I think that those are really powerful statements right there about the work that you’re doing and the humanity that we need to bring to not only STEM, but any area of education, any area of study, any area of community, you know, community gathering. Thank you very much for being here. This has been very stimulating. Did you have anything else you wanted to say very quickly before we sign off?

Claudia De Grandi 29:01

Well, thank you for the opportunity. I just would like to advertise a class, of course, to the students. They start every spring, so just look it up. The CS and the Center for Science and Math Education.

David Pace 29:12

We’ll put a link our website yep

Claudia De Grandi 29:12

A page where everybody can learn more about previous topics and their project and then more of what we didn’t have time to talk about and resources, also books and things that we use in the class.

David Pace 29:22

Yeah, Excellent.

Claudia De Grandi 29:23

Thank you.

David Pace 29:24

All right. Well, thank you very much for being with us. And we will see you all next time.