CAREER: The Impact of Power on Active Learning in Learning Assistant-supported General and Organic Chemistry Lectures

About This Grant

NSF CAREER: The Impact of Power on Active Learning in Learning Assistant-supported General and Organic Chemistry Lectures The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) program is a National Science Foundation-wide initiative that supports early-career faculty in advancing research and education. The U.S. STEM workforce plays a critical role in driving innovation and economic growth, to ensure that these goals are met, additional initiatives must be implemented in courses within STEM curricula to ensure student readiness and preparation. Active small-group learning supported by students who took the course previously and return as Learning Assistants (LAs) is beneficial for undergraduate students in gatekeeper general and organic chemistry lectures. However, variation in student learning for different student groups is understudied and has been hypothesized to be connected to students’ relationships with each other and the subject matter. This CAREER project studies the impact of student relationships on their learning as it occurs in the moment of their interactions with each other in LA-supported general and organic chemistry lectures. This research investigates dynamic power relationships amongst students and between students and instructors (professors and LAs) as well as students and concepts that are co-constructed in interaction. Specific research goals of this project are to: (R1) describe patterns of how power relations impact learning as it occurs in the moment of student-student interactions in active learning lectures; (R2) investigate how differences in LA facilitation of student learning impact these power relations; (R3) characterize how the way different professors in the study design their classes impact these power relations; and (R4) describe how any factors that go beyond the classroom level impact these power relations as student-student interactions and the classroom they occur in are embedded in greater society. The research is guided by a combination of theory on power, learning, facilitation, and classroom systems. Multiple strands of data will be collected and qualitatively analyzed, including videos of LA-facilitated student-student interactions and interviews with professors, LAs and students. The research goals connect tightly to education goals aimed at developing and implementing activities for instructional teams of LA-supported active learning classes that promote self-reflection and noticing of power dynamics as well as stimulate discussion of how facilitation and class design might be used and changed to disrupt power relations that hinder learning. Additionally, this project will develop guides for instructional team members of how to bring these activities to their instructional teams including navigating power dynamics within instructional teams during implementation. Through the connection between research and education, this CAREER project will provide knowledge and concrete activities for instructors including faculty instructors and LAs that can transform gatekeeper STEM classes to be taught in ways that are more beneficial for all students’ learning. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.