Learning in Community for STEM Undergraduates: Connecting a Learning Sciences and a Learning Humanities Approach in Higher Education

Abstract

Previous research demonstrates that social and interpersonal factors, more than academic preparation, affect decisions by under-represented students to stay in or to leave STEM fields. Yet, much of the theorizing about STEM learning in higher education begins with conceptual and epistemological dimensions. We make the case for a new theoretical framework, a learning humanities, that begins with relationships. From this relational starting point, we locate STEM knowers as actors in relationships who become answerable for their STEM knowledge and take wise actions from this place. We then use this framework to analyze learning for STEM undergraduates involved in the STUDIO: Build Our World program, an afterschool mentoring program for low-income, immigrant, and refugee youth of color. Drawing on narrative and ethnographic analyses of data from 12 focal mentors, we found that mentors developed 3 focal practices identified by Edwards, relational expertise, common knowledge, and relational agency through their efforts to create the best possible program for youth. This built mentors’ sense of answerability and a capacity for wise action within and outside of STUDIO. We argue that this theoretical stance provides new ways to conceptualize the nature, purpose, and outcomes of STEM learning for historically non-dominant STEM undergraduates’ learning.

Acknowledgments

We thank the youths and families who welcomed us into their community to learn together with them. We thank Dr. Celeste Pea for her support for the STUDIO model. We also thank former mentors and staff members whose efforts to launch STUDIO in the early years are not reflected in this article but are deeply felt: Yvonne Alvarez, Meva Beganovic, Clarke Hill, Meixi, and Rachel Phillips. A special thank you to Erin Riesland for creating Figure 1.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation (DRL- 1310817) and the Center for Public Service Communications/National Library of Medicine. The views expressed are the perspectives of the authors and do not necessarily reflect funders’ views.