Bulldozing the STEM Silos in Omaha While Engaging P-12 Teachers and Building Campus STEM Excellence

By: Neal Grandgenett, Ph.D., Haddix Community Chair of STEM Education, University of Nebraska at Omaha
Christine E. Cutucache, Ph.D., Haddix Community Chair of Science, University of Nebraska at Omaha
William E. Tapprich, Ph.D., Sophie and Feodora Kahn Professor of Biology, University of Nebraska at Omaha
Brian Dorn, Ph.D., Union Pacific Community Chair of Computer Science, University of Nebraska at Omaha

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It has been said that all universities “do STEM these days,” but what exactly does it take to “do STEM” well?  Questions commonly heard on a university campus include: “What is the STEM context for inquiry?”, “Should P-16 STEM be a campus priority?”, “How can we break down departmental silos for interdisciplinary workforce development?” In many ways STEM represents, at its core, an interdisciplinary approach and workforce development context to learning that rigorously engages the core concepts of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (Tsupros, N., Kohler, R. and Hallinen, J., 2009; National Science and Technology Council, 2018). Additionally, STEM concepts are found in most any P-16 curriculum (to include reading, writing, philosophy, history, etc.). How does it all come together for a campus trajectory toward STEM excellence? These questions, as well as projected workforce needs, make “STEM” an important part of the conversation on most campuses, and it certainly is the case for us at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO). Further, it is truly a national dialogue, as educational institutions strive to more effectively work across disciplinary lines for “convergence”, where the insights and approaches from different disciplines can come together for finding creative solutions for our most difficult societal problems (National Research Council, 2014). Convergence is also a growing theme for innovations in P-12 STEM teacher training, as highlighted at the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) 2018 Noyce Teacher Scholarship Summit and also across scientific programs as one of NSF’s 10 Big Ideas.

At UNO, we typically define ourselves as a “Metropolitan University”, which in its simplest terms is an institution that accepts all of higher education’s traditional values in teaching, research, and service but takes upon itself the additional responsibility of providing engaged leadership within the metropolitan region. The overall goal is certainly one of convergence in our efforts to leverage the human and financial resources of the university as full partners to improve the region’s quality of life. Thus, for STEM at UNO, it is truly a P-16 endeavor for our 15,431 students and our metropolitan community, and one that welcomes P-12 teachers as colleagues within our STEM reform efforts.

First and foremost, UNO STEM is about working collaboratively across disciplinary lines to make real differences in how P-16 students learn in all disciplines and to find insights across disciplines. At the same time, we know that deep dives into STEM disciplines will help propel students into their productive individual careers as thoughtful and convergent problem solvers. Such university-wide collaboration across and within STEM areas is both complex and challenging, so where does a university focus?  What footholds for quality collaboration are available to try to break down historical silos?  At UNO, we have found that developing comprehensive programs that collectively support high quality P-12 teachers can be a strong catalyst to STEM excellence and the convergence across disciplines, which can also make a difference for all students (whether they be pre-service teachers, in-service teachers advancing their education, traditional STEM majors and non-STEM majors). Moreover, we’ve increasingly observed noticeable impacts across STEM programs into the broader metropolitan community, such as industry and school districts.

Investing in P-12 teachers is critically important in STEM workforce development (Carmichael, 2017). In today’s highly technical economy, the need for high quality STEM teachers has never been greater (Moritz, 2018). There is a growing need for deep content knowledge for teachers, while synergistically emphasizing inquiry-based pedagogy skills that can be deployed in their own classrooms (Bybee, 2013; Kelley & Knowles, 2016; Slavit, Nelson & Lesseig, 2016). However, many universities still struggle to encourage faculty to disseminate knowledge in a convergent and inquiry-based, student-focused way. Therefore, many teachers — in both K-12 and higher education — continue to “teach as they were taught.” In our UNO programs, we’ve put considerable emphasis on “practicing what we preach” by changing the way we present material in and out of the university classroom, and often involving P-12 teachers in various UNO STEM initiatives. As we like to say at UNO, “we’ve taken a bulldozer to the cement silos of STEM” to provide the interdisciplinary opportunity for collaborative work. This collaborative work across UNO, Omaha, and Nebraska is gaining recognition as shown by a 2016 Community-University Engagement Award by the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities, a 2017 recognition of Omaha and Nebraska by STEM Ready America, and in a 2018 report sponsored by ACUMEN and associated with online STEM tutoring that referenced Omaha as surprisingly leading the nation.

A closer look at some of our silo bulldozing collaborations at UNO will illustrate how we are trying to break down the departmental barriers on the campus and in the Omaha metropolitan community.

Cross-Department Collaboration to Combat Computer Science Teacher Shortages: Various graduate courses and programs for teachers at UNO are interdisciplinary in order to provide particularly rich content. For example, the Department of Computer Science and Teacher Education now has one of the first Master’s degree programs in Computer Science Education. This degree program, which is offered jointly by the College of Information, Science and Technology and the College of Education, entails coursework from both colleges and results not only in an M.S. from the Computer Science Department, but also in a Nebraska Supplemental Teaching Endorsement from the College of Education for Instructional Technology that is CS focused. The MS program has become popular in the metropolitan Omaha area in just four years, with 35 teachers now in the program and our first graduate in December of 2018. Further, the program is available to individuals with educational interests outside of schools, such as corporate trainers, informal educators (such as museum staff), and community college instructors. A private foundation is contributing partial tuition assistance for selected teachers from high-need and rural schools. This focused development of computer science teachers has been shown to help to address a critical shortage of computer science teachers that has many inherent challenges with teacher training and certification pathways (Code.org, 2017; Thompson, 2018; Foresman, 2018).

STEM Content-Rich Graduate Programs for P-12 Teachers: Other more established UNO graduate programs, such as a Master’s of Arts for Teachers of Mathematics in the Math Department and the STEM-related Secondary Graduate Programs in the Department of Teacher Education allow teachers to integrate large numbers of STEM content rich courses that are also strong in inquiry-based pedagogies. Innovative content-rich courses have been recommended to universities as a national strategy for supporting high quality STEM teaching and building P-12 pathways to 2-year and 4-year institutions (National Science and Technology Council, 2018; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2016). Further, a graduate STEM education course, called Data Driven Decision Making for Educators, is also available (and typically required) across all the campus STEM graduate programs to help all teachers regardless of STEM discipline to better use and interpret educational data for enhanced student learning. Many of the concepts taught relate to wider data use, such as variance, error in measurement, assessment validity, logic modeling, and other concepts that cross STEM disciplines at large but are also important for interpreting educational impacts at the classroom and school levels so critical for today’s teachers (Zacharoula, Anastasios, 2014).

Teacher-Researcher Partnerships: Another example that engages and enhances practicing teachers, is our Teacher-Researcher Partnership Program (TRPP) where we mentor current teachers in genuine research practices, centered around integrating teachers in field-based research underway by selected STEM faculty at UNO. These methods of training follow high impact practice recommendations (Kuh, 2008; American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2011) and provide a strong foundation in science content, practices, and processes for the participants. As a by-product, faculty across STEM disciplines and across educational levels come together to implement the programs and disseminate the results. Since science teachers in the public schools often lack opportunities to actually do science investigations (Mansour, 2009), this program, covering a six-week period in the summer, competitively selects both teachers and researchers and pairs them to conduct a focused research activity, work together on various phases of the study, participate in a journal club, and present results in a mentored poster session open to the university and community at the end of the six weeks (Tapprich et al., 2016). The summer program is followed by continued engagement in the next academic year as the pairs of teachers and faculty continue to refine the research, and work on professional outcomes such as articles and presentations.  In addition, participating teacher bring their students to campus to tour the laboratories. Teachers learn deep research skills, and university faculty often learn some pedagogical tips from the teachers. These benefits are mutualistic. Teachers are also committed to translate their research into the classroom, and researchers are committed to assist with this translation.

Further Examples

Stakeholder Implications for STEM Silo Bulldozing

It is important to note that STEM “Silo Bulldozing” is certainly not easy, and breaking down the historical STEM barriers on a campus needs to be considered as a frequently political and stressful, as it often involves departmental “program turf” in one way or another. Most importantly, it takes very focused strategic planning at a variety of levels to help to systematically and thoughtfully address such barriers for STEM innovation (National Science and Technology Council, 2018). In addition, trust building is certainly at the center of this planning process and the related collaboration, as many of our UNO programs had extended conversations that required people to continue to contribute to the planning, such as when dual undergraduate pathways were first put in place. Examples of primary stakeholder groups and implications are:

• Researchers –We have found that Discipline-Based Educational Research, or engaging in educational research from the base of a discipline (such as for program retention, coursework improvement, etc.), can be a powerful mechanism for engaging faculty as it is an opportunity for teams of faculty to collaboratively publish and to externally fund their efforts. As part of a team, a disciplinary researcher has expertise in content (i.e., “expert teacher”) while combining skills in cognitive sciences for the “application and assessment” component; thus, making a powerful research contribution. Furthermore, combining these two synergistic areas of expertise can also be powerful for trust building, as the faculty typically see a productive collaboration, and can also often find real contributions to their careers (e.g., publications and grants, or as a mechanism within disciplinary grants for broader impacts by having a funded P-12 engagement component).
• Teacher educators – For teacher educators, particularly in Colleges of Education, it is important to realize that a close working relationship with disciplinary colleagues in other departments can enhance program(s) and may well become a catalyst to increased enrollments rather than decreased ones in a teacher education program. Engaged disciplinary partners in other colleges can also provide strong encouragement to disciplinary students to consider teaching when such faculty are a part of preparing these teachers. With encouragement and collaboration, disciplinary colleagues often begin to employ some model pedagogical practices which reinforce the learning fundamentals already integrated into educational coursework.
• P-12 schools – For P-12 schools, it is important to realize that hiring a well-qualified science teacher who can teach deeply in a particular discipline is a greater long-term contribution to a school then a more generalized science teacher, who often is limited to lower level coursework and is often locked out of any graduate coursework on content. For example, a Physics teacher with a disciplinary degree in Physics, who is ready to take physics graduate coursework will eventually be able to help the school offer dual enrollment coursework in partnership with a local university, and will often have a great relationship with university faculty to refine such coursework, while a general science teacher, who has only had lower level coursework, will most likely not be ever able to teach a dual enrollment course.
• Policymakers – For policymakers, and particularly administrators at the university, it is critical to encourage faculty and departments to try to put aside turf considerations for various experimental efforts. At UNO, we had departmental, college, and university administrators that were often very willing to take a chance and who worked collaboratively to build trust across STEM departments and colleges. At times, they attended joint meetings, and other times simply invited faculty outside of a department or college to collaborate on something important, such as student retention. Most importantly though, administrators need to encourage departments to accept contributions like interdisciplinary STEM grants, discipline-based education research publications, and other collaborative professional endeavors to count toward a faculty member’s reappointment, promotion, and tenure process. Policy makers at the state and national level need to be engaged and also need to try to see P-16 STEM education as a collaborative pathway, where all partners can be resources. For example, in Nebraska, 92 disciplinary and education professors across the University of Nebraska system provided feedback and refinements on the 2017 Nebraska Science Standards to the Nebraska Department of Education (NDE) at their request and often we serve on panels sharing these innovations with lawmakers. Finally, some of those university faculty continue to work with NDE on various initiatives, and benefit through this work by extending their understanding of P-16 education.

In summary, the collaborative STEM “bulldozing” journey at UNO began with a strong P-16 commitment to jointly preparing high-quality STEM teachers and enhancing the skillset of current STEM teachers through research-based experiences. As a result, these initiatives have added to the campus culture and departmental silos have been significantly reduced, and although certainly some are still present, they are increasingly eroding as the bulldozer routinely bumps into them with new initiatives and successes. The innovation of jointly preparing STEM teachers and building programs across disciplines made perfect sense for a metropolitan university like UNO, and the trust it built was in many ways the bulldozer fuel. The wider programmatic dialogues that explore possibilities for all STEM students have become more common and spontaneous, as more and more faculty take an interest and share responsibility for high-quality STEM programming. Thus, although STEM bulldozing is not easy and is often a bit messy, it is increasingly fun as more machines get underway, and more and more faculty put themselves into the driver’s seat.

Neal Grandgenett, Ph.D., Haddix Community Chair of STEM Education, University of Nebraska at Omaha
ngrandgenett@unomaha.edu

is the Dr. George and Sally Haddix Community Chair of STEM Education and Professor of Teacher Education in the College of Education at UNO, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in interdisciplinary STEM learning, data driven decision making, and research methods. In his 29 years at UNO, he has taught 194 classes and authored over 150 articles and research papers, as well as five book chapters and one book. Dr. Grandgenett has been a PI or CoPI on nearly $18,000,000 in federal STEM grants and has been the investigator or co-investigator on eleven different National Science Foundation grants, all related to P16 learning. Read more.

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Christine E. Cutucache, Ph.D., Haddix Community Chair of Science, University of Nebraska at Omaha
ccutucache@unomaha.edu

is an Associate Professor of Biology at the University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO). Dr. Cutucache is a tumor immunologist turned science educator. During her tenure, Dr. Cutucache has secured more than $8.8 million in funding, and has published over 30 peer-reviewed articles on her research. Her research lab is diverse in studying both tumor immunology (specifically tumor-induced immunosuppression in B- and T-cell leukemias and lymphomas) as well as Discipline-Based Education Research (DBER). Read more.

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William E. Tapprich, Ph.D., Sophie and Feodora Kahn Professor of Biology, University of Nebraska at Omaha
wtapprich@unomaha.edu

is an RNA biochemist, virologist and educational researcher. In basic research, he studies the structure and function of viral RNA genomes. He has served as PI on 13 basic research grants totaling $4.3 million. In discipline-based education research (DBER) he studies best practices in biology education with an emphasis on undergraduate research and has served as PI on 3 and CoPI on 12 DBER grants totaling $4.4 million and is actively involved in projects that enhance discipline-specific education for K-12 teachers and students. Read more.

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Brian Dorn, Ph.D., Union Pacific Community Chair of Computer Science, University of Nebraska at Omaha
bdorn@unomaha.edu

is an Associate Professor of Computer Science. Along with colleagues and students in the BRIDGE lab, he conducts human-centered computing research with a particular emphasis on education and the learning sciences. He designs and evaluates educational technology to support the teaching and learning of computing content. As a community chair, he is actively involved in advocacy and training work to support universal access to computing education in primary and secondary schools across Nebraska. Read more.