Unique Aspects of the PDP 

PDP participants work in small teams to design, teach, and assess a STEM inquiry lab activity for a higher-education venue, such as a course or workshop. Below are some unique aspects of the PDP approach:

1. Collaborating within a community of practice

PDP participants form a community of practice that begins with their small team and extends to the larger cohort of other participants that come through the program contemporaneously. They share values such as broadening access to STEM and supporting each others’ career development. Together, PDP participants build vital knowledge and skills. They learn about and discuss research on effective teaching and mentoring pedagogy, and they develop and practice leadership, teamwork, and project management skills. They use these skills as they design and teach an innovative lab activity that mirrors the research process, in turn mentoring and positively impacting their own students. PDP participants build a community that values belonging and extends beyond the workshop. They join the extended community of over 700 alumni that have participated in the program over more than two decades and continues to impact STEM.

2. Mirroring authentic research and design

A PDP-designed inquiry lab activity reflects authentic scientific research and/or engineering design, concentrating on the subtle and challenging practices that scientists and engineers employ in their work. For example, an inquiry activity on a topic in astrophysics could focus on the cognitive practice of generating a scientific explanation, giving students experience with the particular types of evidence used in this field, and the ways that astrophysicists draw and explain their conclusions based on this evidence. In addition, there are particular norms, values, and ways of thinking in STEM. For example, there are particular norms for giving feedback or asking questions during presentations. A learning experience that makes these aspects of STEM explicit and/or gives students practice with them builds their competency in STEM and helps them to become part of the STEM community.

3. Instilling ownership of learning

A key component of our pedagogical approach includes ownership of learning, both in relation to STEM practices and to conceptual understanding. For a learner to have ownership, there must be choice and opportunities for figuring out one’s own path to understanding. 
A PDP inquiry lab activity provides multiple possible pathways to understanding core concepts and multiple ways to engage in STEM practices. PDP participants are charged with the difficult task of designing and teaching an activity that has very specific intended learning outcomes, yet has multiple entry points, multiple ways to investigate or design something, and multiple solutions or ways to explain one’s findings. While teaching, PDP participants facilitate learning in a way that maintains learners’ ownership, without simply giving them answers or instructions. PDP participants employ strategies that help them understand how a learner is thinking about or approaching a problem, and model collaboration that respects and embraces the many ways that learners work and learn.

4. Supporting STEM identity and belonging

Learners have multiple and overlapping social identities. They also have beliefs and preferences about how others view them and their identities. A growing body of evidence links the development of a positive STEM identity (seeing oneself as a “science or engineering person”), persistence in STEM, and the choice to pursue a STEM career. Researchers have identified factors that lead to a positive STEM identity, which include developing a sense of one’s own competency in STEM and gaining recognition for that competency. PDP participants design activities that develop learners’ competency in STEM concepts and practices, while giving learners opportunities to demonstrate and gain recognition for what they know and can do. PDP participants’ work explicitly gives learners practice within the culture of STEM, which has its own norms and values like any other culture. Subtle aspects of the learning and/or research environment can trigger negative stereotypes, intensify learners’ assumptions about themselves, and negatively impact their performances. The PDP community approaches intelligence as a malleable, rather than fixed, trait, and emphasizes practice and improvement. This practice with STEM cultural norms and emphasis on malleable intelligence begins to address learners who are discouraged from participation, recognition, or identification with STEM.

5. Making learners’ thinking visible

PDP training emphasizes the importance of using strategies to make learners’ thinking visible to both the instructor and the learner, as an important part of formative (ongoing) assessment. This way, learners can more clearly pinpoint areas where they may need to improve their understanding, and instructors can adjust their teaching to better support learners. As they design their inquiry activities, PDP participants develop a teaching plan that incorporates relevant strategies, and then they practice these strategies as they facilitate their activities. PDP participants make design choices that foster meaningful talk amongst peers, such as having learners work in teams of 2-3 students, and actively monitoring social dynamics to support productive interactions within the teams. They learn on-the-fly facilitation strategies for encouraging students to communicate their thinking in a range of ways, such as drawing, demonstrating with an experimental setup, and explaining. These facilitation strategies also apply directly to mentoring scenarios.