Improve Diversity and Equity with
Transfer-Bridges for Problem Solving

In the California STEM Symposium for 2015, I hosted a Round Table Discussion about how we can...

Improve Diversity and Equity with Transfer-Bridges [and Transition-Bridges]* for Problem Solving

In five stages of instruction beginning with non-STEM inquiry, learn how to show students that for doing almost everything in life — including engineering and science — they use a similar creative-and-critical process of problem-solving Design Thinking. This process can help more students, across a wider diversity, improve their confidence and motivations for STEM.

[* We can build Transfer-Bridges for Learning and Transition-Bridges for Attitudes based on Self-Perceptions.]

For the symposium, I want to emphasize two themes:

1. Improve Diversity and Equity in STEM Education

HANDOUT for the discussion; this is an outline of the "five stages of instruction." {grayscale version of pdf for black-and-white printing}

WEB-PAGE about these ideas, and MORE — When you click this link the left-side-page develops these ideas more fully in its first 4 sections ("Whole-Life Contexts" & "Two Bridges (for Learning and Attitudes)" & "Improving Diversity-and-Equity" & "Whole-Person Education") and, with “how to do it” details, when you click the link for "using a 5-step progression [of activities & bridges]."

ALSO (and more generally, not specifically about educational equity),
2. Improve Problem-Solving Skills by Combining Models-for-Process

This is described in left+right pages, briefly and more deeply.

And, for a broad overview, the HOMEPAGE of my website about Using Design Process for Problem Solving and Education.

And in others years at California STEM Symposium,

in 2014, Build Bridges between Engineering and Science to Improve NGSS Practices;

in 2016, Use a Process-of-Inquiry to teach Principles-for-Inquiry

Improve Diversity and Equity with Transfer-Bridges for Problem Solving