Do you have students who can see themselves as a “science kind of person” or “good at math”? Do you see a difference between the number of students who identify positively with STEM fields change as they enter adolescence?
Explore this topic with other teachers and UNL sociologists in a new course offered by the Nebraska Math and Science Summer Institutes (NMSSI). SOCI 898: Social Psychological Processes in the STEM Classroom: Activating STEM Identities will be taught by Dr. Trish Wonch Hill this summer. The course is being offered over two weeks, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. July 10-14 and 17-21 on the UNL City Campus, and is paired with Math 811T: Functions for High School Teachers, from 8 a.m. to noon, in 110 Avery Hall. These two courses can be taken together or singularly.
Tuition fellowships for Math 811T in Lincoln and SOCI 898 are worth $500 each from the NMSSI until funds run out or until May 12. The NMSSI Fellowship Application is now open at http://go.unl.edu/scimathapply.
Math 811T is a study of functions in the pre-calculus, high school mathematics curriculum from an advanced viewpoint. Functions will be investigated by examining their utility in more advanced courses and applications, enabling teachers to better understand the important aspects and appropriate emphasis of a concept. Content will include polynomial, circular (trig), and exponential functions, and their connections to calculus.
SOCI 898 covers a broad range of social psychological topics and processes to help teachers better understand how social context impacts STEM learning. Students will learn about social inequality in STEM fields, and the individual, interactional, and institutional barriers to developing a science identity for youth from a variety of social locations (rural/urban, gender, race/ethnicity, Socioeconomic Status, ELL). The class will learn about implicit bias, stereotype threat, and identity theory, and how they impact formal and informal social interactions and learning in the STEM classroom.
HOW TO ENROLL:
To enroll in UNL graduate courses in the NMSSI, follow the four steps outlined on the website, http://scimath.unl.edu/nmssi/
FELLOWSHIPS:
For all on-site NMSSI courses, current Nebraska teachers automatically qualify for a tuition reduction equal to 20 percent of in-state, graduate tuition. Additionally, Nebraska K-12 teachers can apply for supplemental NMSSI Fellowships to further defray tuition costs for NMSSI courses. Read more about the costs at: http://scimath.unl.edu/nmssi/2017/costs/ The NMSSI Fellowship Application is also now open at http://go.unl.edu/scimathapply
Contact us at nebraskamath@unl.edu with questions.