Re-Envisioning Classroom Culture in an Introductory General Chemistry Course: Description of a Course Redesign Project

Abstract

In the U.S., the retention of students in STEM degree pathways has been an issue that many higher education institutions have and continue to face. Many of us in the chemistry education community have been reflecting on our own roles and responsibilities to create a more inclusive learning environment for all students in chemistry. Culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) and culturally responsive teaching (CRT) are two influential frameworks that informed efforts in promoting inclusivity in chemistry classrooms. However, the current literature focuses primarily on isolated interventions, highlighting a need for theoretical development that articulates the synergy between the two frameworks and synthesizes them in the context of chemistry education. In this essay, we present a framework for re-envisioning chemistry classroom culture consisting of four tenets: culturally relevant chemistry knowledge, cultural validation, collectivist cultural orientations, and humanized chemistry learning environments. We identified five course redesign entry points: amplifying student voice, emphasizing group work, contextualizing content knowledge, scaffolding technical language, and revising assessment structures. We hope to present both a framework and a set of course redesign entry points for chemistry educators interested in re-envisioning their classroom culture. We will also discuss the evaluation plan of this project and future work to sustain student cultural assets in chemistry classrooms.

1. Introduction

In a world that is increasingly shaped by science and technology, an equitable and high-quality science education is paramount to the sustainment and advancement of countries and their citizens. For decades, the United States (U.S.) has recognized, although not necessarily prioritized, this goal in the context of innovation capital and economic prosperity (National Academy of Sciences et al., 2010; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2021). Not only is scientific literacy crucial for fostering the U.S. gross domestic product, but many reform efforts have also focused on meeting the demands for producing a diverse science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce that is equipped to push scientific fields to pursue important and relevant issues for all communities. In recent years, there has been widespread interest in increasing the number of students completing bachelor’s degrees in STEM disciplines, with the President’s Council of Advisors in Science and Technology (PCAST) calling for one million additional STEM-educated university graduates (Olson & Riordan, 2012). Particularly, PCAST has stressed the importance of expanding the participation of individuals from diverse populations in STEM fields in order to reach the nation’s full innovation potential (President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, 2021).

In the U.S., retention of students in STEM degree pathways has been a perennial issue that many higher education institutions continue to face. Particularly, the retention of racially, culturally, and linguistically minoritized STEM students in higher education has compounded the existing educational debt, i.e., the systemic inequities and injustices that persist within educational systems, that has continued to accumulate (Ladson-Billings, 2006). There are documented equity gaps for minoritized students in undergraduate chemistry courses (Estrada et al., 2016). These equity gaps for minoritized individuals extend into the U.S. workforce, with only 6.2% of chemists and material scientists, chemical engineers, and chemical technicians identified as Black or African American, and only 7.0% identified as Hispanx or Latinx, as compared to their U.S. population size of 13.7% and 19.5%, respectively (Vargas et al., 2023). Research has reported that although racially minoritized students choose STEM majors at rates similar to those of their White and Asian peers, their rate of degree completion was lower, highlighting an equity gap in higher education STEM pathways (Estrada et al., 2016).

Scholars researching how minoritized students experience STEM learning environments have uncovered several factors that contributed to their experience of exclusion. Black and Latinx undergraduate students experienced exclusion from STEM learning environments in four main ways: (1) faculty perpetuating exclusionary classroom culture, (2) study group peers perpetuating stereotype threat, (3) nuances in undergraduate student experiences with their cultural peers, and (4) unaddressed discrimination (Flores et al., 2024). Narratives from Black and Latinx STEM students have highlighted that the exclusionary classroom culture created by faculty trickles down to students and negatively impacts their efforts to develop productive relationships with both the faculty and their peers.

In recent years, following the murder of George Floyd and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, many of us in the chemistry education community began asking questions about our own roles and responsibilities to create a more diverse and equitable learning environment for all students in chemistry. Over the last several years, we have been pondering this question: “What does an anti-racist and decolonialized chemistry curriculum look like?” We think it is important to note that this is a question that many have been asking long before the broader community (ourselves included) began to engage in this work. In a September 2021 editorial, Greta Glugoski-Sharp, 2021–2022 President for the American Association of Chemistry Teaches, noted that “[c]ulturally responsive teaching is asking chemistry [educators] to “re-envision” their classrooms—not by throwing out lessons or activities that we know work, but rather by building on successful practices already in place”. Similarly, discussions about anti-racist pedagogy have included conversations about culturally relevant pedagogy centering academic success, cultural competence, and critical consciousness (Gay, 2008; Ladson-Billings, 1995, 2006).

In this essay, we describe an integrated course redesign framework for an introductory general chemistry course that resulted from our cycle of research, reflection, discussion, implementation, and evaluation. Our goal was to bring together the two complementary frameworks, namely culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP) and culturally responsive teaching (CRT), to re-envision college general chemistry courses. In synthesizing the two frameworks, we propose an approach for re-envisioning chemistry classroom culture using two tenets of culturally relevant pedagogy (culturally relevant chemistry knowledge and cultural validation) and two tenets of culturally responsive teaching (collectivist cultural orientations and humanized chemistry learning environments). We then applied this approach in the context of introductory general chemistry and have identified five entry points for course redesign. The implementation and evaluation of the course redesign is still ongoing, so the current essay focuses on a reflective discussion of our redesign approach with examples from the resulting activities of course redesign.

1.1. Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Culturally Responsive Teaching

One important motivation for us to engage with culturally relevant pedagogy and culturally responsive teaching is our desire to think about teaching and learning beyond the boundaries of course content material. We wanted to expand our perspective on what it means to practice inclusive teaching. Ladson-Billings ignited the movement of culturally relevant pedagogy (CRP), where academic success, cultural competence, and critical consciousness to understand and critique social issues were weaved together to support student learning (Ladson-Billings, 1995). Gay proposed culturally responsive teaching (CRT) as using the cultural knowledge, lived experiences, frames of reference, and styles of performance of racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse students to tailor learning interactions to suit their learning needs and make learning environments more inclusive and effective for them (Gay, 2008). The goal for science education through the adoption of culturally responsive teaching is to foster in students a new perspective on science and its impact on society.

Both culturally relevant pedagogy and culturally responsive teaching were proposed to improve educational experiences for students from diverse backgrounds, particularly students who are historically marginalized in education. As shown in Figure 1 above, CRP and CRT have a complementary relationship. The central consideration of both CRP and CRT is teaching from an asset-based perspective that includes students’ experiences, interests, and backgrounds. CRP focuses on incorporating cultural references in the course content to empower students intellectually, emotionally, socially, and politically (Ladson-Billings, 1995). CRT focuses on creating inclusive learning environments and engaging students through relationship building (Gay, 2008). CRP’s emphasis on empowering students is complemented well by CRT’s focus on adapting instructional methods to create more inclusive learning environments. The two approaches share a commitment to affirming students’ identities and making learning experiences inclusive and meaningful for students.

1.2. CRP and CRT in Chemistry Courses

Chemistry educators and education researchers have been advancing equitable and inclusive chemistry teaching to reduce equity gaps in undergraduate chemistry courses (Aoki et al., 2022; Scanlon et al., 2018; Stoddard, 2022; White et al., 2021). The role of culture in chemistry has been discussed by scholars with a focus on its marginalizing effect (Jumarito & Nabua, 2021; Oladejo et al., 2022; Rahmawati et al., 2017). Western culture tends to dominate the traditional chemistry curriculum and subsequent student learning, which may lead students from other cultural backgrounds to become disengaged in chemistry (Oladejo et al., 2022; Spencer et al., 2022). Implementing CRP and CRT can help to show the relevance of chemistry to students’ lived experiences and demonstrate how developing their expertise in chemistry can help them tackle problems of relevance to their communities (Roque-Peña, 2024; Winstead et al., 2022). The central goal of implementing culturally relevant pedagogy and culturally responsive teaching is to create learning environments that help students recognize, honor, and develop their own cultural beliefs and identity.

CRP and CRT have been applied in course redesign projects around the globe and in various educational settings. Internationally, there has been great interest in the Global South to connect chemistry content knowledge with local cultural practices to incorporate culturally relevant chemistry knowledge and validate student culture backgrounds. Chemistry education researchers and practitioners from many countries have produced valuable insights into ways in which chemistry learning environments can be adapted to different local cultural contexts.

Bridging learning in the classroom and at home illustrates the tenets of cultural validation and humanizing the chemistry learning environment. For example, Rodenbough and Manyilizu developed chemistry lesson plans that incorporated readings about Ocimum kilimandscharicum, a plant found primarily in Kenya, in lesson plans focused on using virtual laboratory tools to teach topics related to chemical bonding and molecular geometry (Rodenbough & Manyilizu, 2019). In Nigeria, Oladejo et al. (2022) reported a culture-techno-contextual approach for incorporating an assignment on indigenous knowledge and cultural practices in a lesson on radiation. Students were tasked with asking their elders about cultural practices and knowledge about radiation and communicating with their elders what they have learned in the classroom (Oladejo et al., 2022).

In addition to the African context, chemistry educators in Southeast Asian and South American countries also reported projects that incorporated culturally relevant chemistry knowledge (Rahmawati et al., 2017; Jumarito & Nabua, 2021). In the Philippines, Jumarito and Nabua (2021) integrated indigenous practices such as Subanen practices of sourcing water with bamboo water drains into chemistry instructional materials to incorporate culturally relevant chemistry knowledge in the curriculum. High school chemistry teachers in Indonesia implemented culturally responsive teaching using ethnochemistry texts that highlighted the relationship between cultural practices such as the tradition of burning frankincense and related chemistry concepts (Rahmawati et al., 2017). Lastly, in Brazil, chemistry educators incorporated culturally relevant chemistry knowledge in their curriculum by integrating the traditional use of cactus pear by rural communities in the Brazilian northeast to create a lesson on the saponification reaction (Pereira Gomes et al., 2024).

In the U.S., projects that utilized CRP and CRT had been primarily conducted to engage culturally minoritized students in chemistry to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in chemistry education (Pickering et al., 2023). For example, chemistry education researchers in Michigan collaborated with Iḷisaġvik College in Alaska to develop a unit on snow chemistry that incorporated the traditional knowledge of the Iñupiaq community into the chemistry curriculum (Spencer et al., 2022). CReST, a new high school curriculum that paired chemistry and world history, incorporated the tenet of cultural validation by including a case study about the fresco (a form of mural art) lifecycle in the curriculum to relate chemistry content knowledge to students’ cultural heritage to increase student interest and performance in chemistry (Ferri & White, 2024).

Storytelling was also a popular format for integrating CRP and CRT in chemistry classrooms. Sanders Johnson reported an organic chemistry course redesign project at Spelman College that incorporated the story of Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey (Sanders Johnson, 2022). The story centered around Nearest Green’s great-great-granddaughter who serves as the Master Blender. Presenting a narrative that centers Black women provides culturally relevant learning material that connects to a student demographic that is often excluded from the traditional chemistry curriculum. Similarly, chemistry instructors at a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) in Baltimore explored ways to humanize the chemistry learning environment in remote general chemistry laboratory courses by using storytelling (Winstead et al., 2022). Through the creation of “The Mystery of Mr. Johnson” series, the redesigned laboratory curriculum leveraged storytelling to illustrate the role chemistry can serve in advancing equity in local community. These examples highlight the broad interest from chemistry educators in the potential for transforming how chemistry is taught both in K-12 and college setting through re-envisioning chemistry classroom culture and practices.

1.3. Framework for Re-Envision Chemistry Classroom Culture

The applications of CRP and CRT discussed above had a common theme of re-envisioning chemistry classroom culture to address the sense of disconnection that makes students, particularly those from minoritized cultures, become disengaged in chemistry (Oladejo et al., 2022; Spencer et al., 2022). Shown in Figure 2, we synthesized the two frameworks and their applications in different contexts into a single framework for re-envisioning chemistry classroom culture that consists of four tenets. The four tenets are culturally relevant chemistry knowledge, cultural validation, humanized chemistry learning environment, and collectivist cultural orientation.

The four tenets can be thought of as four quadrants organized along two axes: the horizontal individual–social axis and the vertical structural-interactional axis. The individual–social axis describes whether a tenet focuses on individual students or the social environment, respectively. The structural–interactional axis describes whether a tenet focuses on curricular and pedagogical structures of a course or instructor-student and student-student interactions during class sessions, respectively. Taken together, the axes describe various aspects of chemistry classroom culture that are the focus of each tenet. Cultural validation focuses on interactions that acknowledge and honor individual students’ cultural backgrounds. Culturally relevant chemistry knowledge focuses on creating course structures that incorporate individual cultural knowledge. Humanized chemistry learning environments focus on developing course structures that create an inclusive educational setting. And lastly, collective cultural orientation focuses on enacting social discourses that orient student interactions towards community building. In our course redesign project, the application of this framework in the context of introductory general chemistry course produced five entry points for enacting course redesign. We will discuss the entry points and provide an example for each in the next section.

2. Approach to Course Redesign

Applying our framework, in Fall 2024, we began a course redesign project in an introductory chemistry course designed to support students as they build chemical intuition and quantitative reasoning about observable, natural phenomena. This course serves to prepare students to move into and through the general chemistry sequence. General chemistry courses are foundational gateway courses for many majors and careers. However, equity gaps in these courses are well documented in the literature, and they often present barriers for minoritized students that prevent them from continuing their academic paths, and in some cases, lead to their departure from STEM fields or higher education altogether (Estrada et al., 2016; Goethe & Colina, 2018). With a substantial increase in students placing into preparatory college mathematics courses, enrollments in preparatory general chemistry courses have grown as well. This provides a unique opportunity to re-envision chemistry classroom culture for a student population potentially vulnerable to dropping out of STEM pathways early on in their academic journey.

2.1. Entry Points for Course Redesign

The goal of our course redesign project is to design and implement instructional practices to validate student’s identity as someone who is developing their expertise in chemistry to address important social justice issues facing their community and create opportunities for students to discuss chemistry concepts in meaningful ways that connect concepts to relevant and authentic situations in their lives. In the previous section, we presented a review and synthesis of existing literature on CRP and CRT in chemistry course redesign projects. We then proposed a framework for re-envisioning chemistry classroom culture. In this section, we present a set of five entry points for course redesign that emerged by applying the framework in an introductory college chemistry course. Figure 3 below shows an overview of the five entry points for the course redesign. For each entry point, we will describe the implementation of the course redesign that can be produced, provide an example from our own course redesign project, and discuss how the redesign connects to our framework.

2.1.1. Amplify Student Voice

As the first entry point, amplifying student voice in the redesign process is central to realizing the four tenets we discussed above. Incorporating culturally relevant knowledge, practicing cultural validation, fostering collective cultural orientation, and creating a humanized learning environment are all predicated on centering students’ lived experiences. Re-envisioning chemistry classroom culture must, therefore, start with getting to know the students and the cultural knowledge they bring into the classroom. When students feel comfortable and encouraged to share their lived experiences with the instructor and their peers, the chemistry classroom becomes a space that provides students with opportunities to learn and exchange knowledge about their cultural backgrounds. This, in turn, creates a learning environment that values and validates the cultural backgrounds and identities of students. Moreover, minoritized students often experience a lack of agency in science learning where they need to fit into a learning environment and persist against that environment (Flores et al., 2024). It is imperative to address and attenuate this unbalanced power dynamic in the classroom when changing classroom culture.

From this entry point, we created channels for students to voice their needs and concerns. We used first day of class surveys to get to know our student beyond the information provided by the college registrar (see Supplemental Material). Before the first day of class, we administered a survey to ask students about the communities to which they felt a sense of belonging, the identities that were salient to them, the cultural practices that they found intriguing, and the issues that were affecting their communities. Student responses to these questions provided the foundation for us to implement culturally relevant pedagogy. As the course went into full swing, our effort to include student voice in the class redesign continued. After each exam, a short survey, similar to an exam wrapper, was sent out to promote metacognition and seek student feedback on course material and pedagogy (Hodges et al., 2020; Gezer-Templeton et al., 2017). We asked students about the instructional practices that they find most beneficial to their learning, as well as suggestions for changes to how the course is being facilitated (see Supplemental Material).

Instructors can create channels to amplify student voice such as a first day of class survey (Schmitt et al., 2013) or exam wrappers (Hodges et al., 2020). The goal of implementing a student survey at the beginning was to invite students to contribute to the course redesign proactively, rather than being positioned as recipients of our educational intervention. These surveys can also help instructors develop course material that include culturally relevant chemistry knowledge and the relationship between chemistry and cultural practices. The first day of class survey asked students to reflect on chemistry related cultural practices that they find intriguing and chemistry-related issues that their communities face. These reflections can serve as a starting point for meaningful conversations and discussions about chemistry during the course.

2.1.2. Emphasize Peer Collaboration

One entry point for fostering a collective cultural orientation and practicing cultural validation in introductory chemistry courses is increasing the amount of class time for in-class group work (Luzyanin, 2024; White et al., 2021). Fostering a collectivist cultural orientation requires that students explore the nature of science as a social, tentative, creative activity. Group work can also create opportunities for students to share their culture with their peers and feel a sense of validation and belonging (Rendon, 1994). In our project, the format of class sessions was structured to incorporate an increase in group collaborations using a jigsaw-like activity structure. Lecture notes were provided to students before the start of each class session and served as a guide for group work. At the start of the group activity, each student picked one of the topics covered in the module. Based on student interests, the instructor made minor reshufflings to ensure that each topic was covered by a similar number of students. The group activities consisted of two stages. In the first stage, students develop expertise on one of the content topics by engaging with scaffolded instructional materials where a set of guiding questions provide structure when students read text on the content topics. In the second stage, students form new groups consisting of at least one person who had developed expertise on each topic. These new groups then allowed students to have agency and be positioned as authorities to teach each other about the material they learned in the first stage.

As an example, we implemented a group activity on chemical reactions that started with students being assigned with one of the three topics: describing chemical changes with chemical equations, interpreting and balancing chemical equations, and performing quantitative analysis with chemical equations. In the first stage of the group activity, students formed groups based on their interests. Guiding questions for each topic encouraged students to relate chemistry content knowledge to cultural practices that were familiar to them. During this process, they prepared notes to share with students engaging with other topics. After students have completed their notes to answer all the guiding questions, they formed new groups consisting of at least one student who engaged with each topic. The second stage of group activity focused on peer teaching. Students took turns sharing their notes with their peers, communicating their chemistry and cultural expertise both orally and visually. After the second stage of the group activity, each student developed notes on all topics covered in a class module.

Emphasizing peer collaboration is an entry point related to the tenets of collectivist cultural orientation and cultural validation. The two-stage group activities were intended to facilitate interactions among students that lead to meaningful discussions about the chemistry content material (Karacop, 2017; Nolan et al., 2018; Tarhan et al., 2013). Students were encouraged to share the ways in which they can relate course content material and their lived experiences. The format of peer teaching was intended to encourage students to share their newly developed expertise with their peers. These social interactions could orient classroom culture towards collaboration and community building. Moreover, students could feel a sense of validation from sharing their cultural knowledge and building a learning community with their peers.

2.1.3. Scaffold Technical Language

From the tenets of culturally relevant chemistry knowledge and humanized learning environment, we identified scaffolding technical language as an entry point for course redesign. Chemistry content knowledge is often conveyed through highly technical language and symbolic representations (Tang, 2019). These technical terms and representations often seem far removed from daily life and give the impression that chemistry is a realm separated from the human experience. The language of chemistry presents additional barriers for students to develop and communicate their content knowledge expertise (Tang, 2019). To support conceptual understanding and add a human aspect to chemistry concepts, rather than introducing the definition of technical vocabulary upfront, the redesigned course material used chemical phenomenon and practices as a starting point to introduce the context in which the meaning of technical vocabulary emerges. After introducing the macroscopic chemical phenomenon, diagrams and simulations were provided to connect macroscopic phenomenon to microscopic representations. Technical nomenclature was developed once experiential knowledge of a phenomenon was established. Scaffolding the introduction of technical vocabulary can facilitate deeper understanding that goes beyond rote memorization of definitions and support emerging bilingual students (Afitska, 2016; Jung, 2019; Symons, 2021).

As an example from this entry point, we revised how technical terms such as enthalpy, calorimetry, exothermic, endothermic, were introduced during the class module on thermochemistry. The introduction of these technical terms began by introducing fundamental concepts that were already familiar to the students, such as energy, heat, and temperature. Animations and diagrams of heat transfer were introduced to illustrate the idea of a system, its surroundings, and the flow of heat energy during endothermic and exothermic processes (see Supplemental Material). Simpler language such as “heat content” were also used to introduce the concept of enthalpy. Additionally, food labels were presented to provide a familiar daily experience that led to the introduction of calorimetry experiments.

Similarly to technical language, symbolic representations in chemistry were introduced and explicitly related to the corresponding macroscopic chemical phenomenon and the submicroscopic processes. For example, students were already describing the changes they saw when they dropped a bath bomb in water or as they interpreted a baking recipe and balancing the ingredients. Symbolic representations were then introduced and used to represent these descriptions of phenomena. Scaffolding the learning of technical language and symbolic representations in chemistry is intended to relate technical terms to these experiences and encourage students to form personally meaningful connections between technical terms and their lived experiences (Jung, 2019; Tang, 2019).

2.1.4. Contextualize Content Knowledge

Course content in introductory chemistry classes often focuses on describing submicroscopic entities that, along with technical, symbolic language, can give students the impression of chemistry being too abstract and removed from meaningful, personal experiences (Sjöström & Talanquer, 2014). From the tenets of culturally relevant chemistry knowledge and cultural validation, we identified contextualizing content knowledge as an entry point for course redesign. Providing contextualized examples allows students to relate chemistry concepts and practices to their lived experiences (Sjöström & Talanquer, 2014; Tshojay & Giri, 2021; Urban et al., 2017). At the beginning of each class module, we introduced a scenario or practice that would lead to discussions about the topics in the class module. Student responses from the first day of class survey guided the preparation of these short lectures that provided context to the chemistry topics. In addition, we included social contexts and issues such as healthcare, pollution, climate change, etc., into the lectures before students form groups to situate the chemistry content and provide students with an opportunity to think critically about the applications of this content knowledge.

As an example from this entry point, we revised our module on classification of matter by contextualizing it in the important role pure substances play in our lives. Using the production of oxygen for treating COVID-19, we introduced the concept of a pure substance and the practice of isolating substances. The sociopolitical issue of oxygen shortages due to the recent pandemic provided context for students to not only think about the role of chemical practices in our society but to also critically reflect on the political process of how resources created through these practices were being allocated. Similarly, our redesigned module on chemical bonds started with an introduction of the importance of understanding chemical bonding in drug discovery. The context of drug discovery also prompted discussions about healthcare disparities that communities have experienced, particularly how less affluent and minoritized communities have been historically burdened with the risk of drug discovery but could not access the benefits of newly developed treatments.

Providing context for chemistry content knowledge before the introduction of the concepts can meaningfully situate the chemistry concepts within culture and society, emphasizing the role of chemistry in cultural practices (Sjöström & Talanquer, 2014). The content material covered in a general chemistry course often consists of largely abstract concepts relating to submicroscopic entities and processes, so contextualizing the content knowledge is an entry point for course redesign to change how culture is included in the chemistry classroom. Contextualizing chemistry concepts and practices in introductory general chemistry course can also serve to facilitate discussion about the societal impacts of chemical practices (Broman & Parchmann, 2014; Urban et al., 2017). These discussions can validate students’ cultural experiences and practices in the discipline of chemistry. When students make connections between their cultural backgrounds and chemistry content knowledge, their cultural knowledge can become further validated as not only personal lived experiences but also scientific expertise.

2.1.5. Restructure Learning Assessment

From the tenets of humanizing the chemistry learning environment and collective cultural orientation, we identified the structure of learning assessments as an entry point. In our project, the structure of assessments was revised to encourage collaboration and peer support. High-stakes, individual exams often induce a great amount of stress for students, and their learning often becomes oriented towards performing on high-stake assessments instead of finding personally meaningful connections to course content material (Bardi et al., 2011; Willson-Conrad & Kowalske, 2018). In addition, revising the structure of assessment can create opportunities for students to demonstrate their learning in ways that are meaningful to them.

Our restructured exams adopted a two-stage format. During the first part of the exam, students spent time solving close-ended questions individually. The close-ended questions include explaining the submicroscopic process of macroscopic chemical phenomenon (e.g., explaining the phenomenon of an iron bike frame rusting after being left in the rain) and performing quantitative analysis of chemical processes (e.g., calculating the amount of propane required to produce enough heat to raise the temperature of 1 kg of water from 25 degrees Celsius to 75 degrees Celsius). During the second part of the exam, students engaged in open-ended activities in groups such as creating concepts maps for the course modules that were covered by the exam. Students were encouraged to work together and utilize resources available to them to demonstrate their learning in creative ways.

Revising the structure of the assessments was intended to expand the ways in which students can demonstrate their learning. Students could demonstrate their competency not only through solving exam problems but also creatively and collectively through making connections between chemistry concepts, cultural practices, and social issues. The revised assessment structure can humanize the chemistry learning environment by reducing student anxiety and valuing personal meaning-making in addition to problem solving, critical thinking, and scientific communication skills (Rempel et al., 2021; Sjöström & Talanquer, 2014). In addition to developing a scientifically accurate understanding of chemistry concepts, students can spend more time thinking about how chemistry is impacting their lives and how they can leverage what they learned to contribute to their communities (Broman & Parchmann, 2014). Revising the structure of learning assessments can also serve to reinforce the other redesigned class activities to create a learning environment that encourages students to lean on their collectivist cultural backgrounds as resources for learning.

3. Discussion

In this essay, we presented a theoretical synthesis of two frameworks, CRP and CRT, in the context of chemistry education to propose a framework for re-envisioning chemistry classroom culture. We then described five entry points for course redesign as we applied our framework to guide our work to transform an introductory general chemistry course. In Figure 4 below, we illustrate the relationship between the five entry points to course redesign and the four tenets of our framework. With amplifying student voice as the central focus, we identified each entry points by intersecting two tenets in our framework. We also want to recognize that every chemistry classroom is a phenomenon produced by its own unique intersections of social, cultural, historical, and political relationships, so re-envisioning chemistry classroom culture requires attending to the diversity of students in particular classrooms instead of taking a one-size-fits-all approach. The entry points described here are not meant to be an exhaustive list of all possible actions to re-envision classroom culture but a set of actions that we adopted in our educational and institutional context. Recognizing that education cannot be considered in a vacuum, we hope to present a theoretical framework and a set of entry points for redesign approaches that chemistry educators can tailor to their specific context. We also described here some examples of course redesign that we implemented from the entry points discussed above.

Johnson and Elliott highlighted that the transformation of STEM departments to become more inclusive entails teaching in ways that may be very different from the ways we, as faculty, originally learned our discipline (Johnson & Elliott, 2020). It requires educators to reflect on problems within the culture of chemistry in which we learned to succeed. Self-reflection on teaching practices has also been shown to be an important strategy for adopting teaching practices that are more culturally responsive (Civitillo et al., 2019). For chemistry educators interested in reflecting on their own teaching, it is productive to make culturally responsive chemistry teaching explicit by reflecting on the intersection between the culture of chemistry, the culture of higher education, and the cultures of minoritized communities (Aguirre & Del Rosario Zavala, 2013; Xie & Ferguson, 2024). For example, instructors can engage with reflections questions such as: how does my lesson make student’s chemical thinking visible? How does my lesson foster and sustain student’s participation in chemistry practices? How does my lesson make the hidden curriculum of higher education visible in critical ways? And how does my teaching validate student identity as someone who is developing their chemical thinking to critique and change important equity or social justice issues facing their community? Engaging with these reflection questions not only creates entry points for course redesign but also fosters a reflexive perspective towards the transformation of learning environments to be more inclusive. The goal is to continuously build our capacity to respond to the changes in cultural, social, and historical contexts where we encounter our students.

4. Future Work

As our course redesign project is still ongoing at the time of preparation of this essay, we are still in the process of collecting data that evaluates the impact of our interventions. We plan to evaluate student experiences of these interventions through student interviews and evaluation of student learning artifacts. Future plans for this instructional improvement project also aim to engage with research literature on culturally sustaining teaching in STEM disciplines to not only change classroom instructional practices to leverage students’ cultural capital for learning chemistry but to also create chemistry learning activities that further extend students’ cultural heritage. For example, place-based pedagogies such as virtual field trips may help humanize the educational environment by fostering deeper connections between classroom learning and local culture. These connections humanize the formal educational environment and leverage students’ lived experiences outside classroom as resources for learning.

Since its conception, pedagogy that considered not only the content material but also students’ cultural backgrounds have been framed with four main terms: culturally sensitive pedagogy, culturally relevant pedagogy, culturally responsive pedagogy, and culturally sustaining pedagogy. These terms are closely related but also have their own distinct ways of incorporating students’ cultural backgrounds into pedagogy. Culturally sensitive pedagogy is primarily concerned with the awareness of cultural differences. Culturally relevant pedagogy is primarily concerned with linking students’ cultural heritage and community cultural practices with the learning that takes place in the classroom. Culturally responsive pedagogy is primarily concerned with adapting the classroom learning environment to students’ cultural capital and community cultural wealth. Culturally sustaining pedagogy is primarily concerned with ways to honor, explore, and extend students’ cultural heritage (Ladson-Billings, 2021). As we continue our work to re-envision chemistry classroom culture, we aim to develop a pedagogy of response-ability, i.e., a pedagogy that focuses on our capacity to respond to students’ diverse lived experiences, and we hope to galvanize chemistry educators to transform the culture of chemistry learning and teaching into one that celebrates the wealth of cultural knowledge brought by our students (Bozalek et al., 2018).