Reinholz et al. (2021)’s eight most used theories of change and how they relate to each other in my head

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I’ve been playing with this figure (inspired by the Reinholz et al. 2021 article) for a while now for the iEarth/BioCeed Leading Educational Change course, where we try to look at our change project through many different lenses in order to find out which ones are most relevant to help us shape and plan the process. In building this figure, I am trying to figure out how the different perspectives overlap and differ. But since there is a huge amount of information in this one figure and it might be slightly overwhelming, here is an animated version (edit: which, apparently, only starts moving if you click on the gif. No idea why, maybe it’s too large?). The gif builds over 25 seconds, and then it shows the still, finished image for 25 seconds. Not sure if this is the best option; I was also considering doing it as narrated slides. But not right now…

Reinholz, D., White, I., & Andrews, T. (2021). Change theory in STEM higher education: a systematic review. International Journal of STEM Education, 8(37), 1 – 22. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-021-00291-2

 

 

How local field laboratories can enhance student learning – first thoughts

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One of iEarth’s stated goals is to develop “local field laboratories” at at least three out of its four member institutions: UiB, UiO, UiT, and UNIS. But what exactly a “local field laboratory” is, and why it actually should enhance learning, is yet to be figured out. In a discussion with iEarth colleagues yesterday, we talked about many benefits of local field laboratories (a term which, again, isn’t clearly defined yet). I am elegantly skipping over the step 1 of the action plan, which would be to do a comprehensive literature search on the topic, and am just documenting my own thoughts after that meeting.

Let’s start out from what we know is necessary for intrinsic motivation, and hence for student learning, namely continuously feeling autonomy, competence, and relatedness (Ryan & Deci, 2000). How can we use interdisciplinary, local field sites to create conditions in which those are experienced?

— Note: ultimately, whether or not those conditions are created will of course depend on how a course is designed and conducted much more than on where it happens! —

Fostering a feeling of autonomy

A feeling of autonomy means that students feel that they have (some) choice over what they do when and where. This can mean many things, of course, and a couple of ideas are provided here.

How a local field laboratory can help foster a feeling of autonomy

Autonomous access: If the local field laboratory is close to campus, students can access (and leave!) it by themselves, possibly by foot, bike, car, public transport, rather than for example a plane. This means they can – at least to a degree – adapt it to their needs: arrive a bit earlier or leave a bit later. It also means that if that they really want to leave a situation they are not comfortable in, they can do that at any time (and are not stuck in some remote location with whoever makes them uncomfortable).

Depending on the setup, it might be possible to access the local field laboratory outside of normal hours, for example for students to catch up on experiments that they missed because of sickness, or to do extra projects because they are curious. This also gives a lot of flexibility to accommodate students that cannot be present during scheduled times.

Low psychological threshold: Field trips – especially the first one to a new location or with a new group – can be scary situations. If the local field laboratory is located close to campus, students stay in an environment where they are familiar with the general culture, language, … This likely means that they feel more confident, and thus more autonomous, in that setting.

Low financial burden: In a local field laboratory close to campus, students are likely to already have appropriate personal equipment (for example a rain jacket appropriate for local climate) rather than having to purchase it for a new-to-student-and-never-to-be-visited-again location. This lowers one potential threshold for participation, giving the students autonomy.

Accessibility: A local field laboratory close to campus is more accessible than having to hike and carry equipment in difficult conditions. A local field laboratory close to campus is NOT accessible to everyone just by virtue of its location though, but it might be easier to make it such.

How using the same local field laboratory with many different disciplines and courses can help foster a feeling of autonomy

More choice of potential research questions: If the local field laboratory is used by many different disciplines or courses, there will be more equipment available for experiments, and more diverse data from previous experiments (if there is a good data storage system). This makes the potential student research questions more interesting and provides a wider choice (if the teachers are flexible enough to allow it).

Accessibility: As stated above, accessibility does not happen by itself, but needs to be considered and planned for. But if there are many students using the same local field laboratory, there might be more resources invested into making sure that the local field laboratory is actually accessible for everybody, and also teachers can build on other teacher’s experiences and good ideas.

Fostering a feeling of competence

Feeling competent means receiving positive feedback: Either external through teachers, friends, family, or an audience on social media, or just by succeeding at doing something.

How a local field laboratory can help fostering a feeling of competence

Transfer: Learning is always situated in a specific context, and the transfer to other contexts is not easy. If the local field laboratory is located close to campus, students can transfer more easily into their own life as it is the same type of environment they spend their whole lives in, thus re-prompting the topic they learned at in that environment over and over again, making them see the world around them with the eyes of an expert – an experience of competence!

Not only one-off: Since the local field laboratory is so close to campus, students can revisit the lab if they want and either repeat or do more. They can also bring friends and/or family to show what they have learned, and have their expert status confirmed. More training in being in the lab and talking about lab content is always practising both lab and science communication skills.

A local field laboratory close to campus can also be used as a red thread throughout the curriculum: the lab can be visited repeatedly over several courses, each time going into more depth, building more competence.

How using the same local field laboratory with many different disciplines and courses can help fostering a feeling of competence

Relevance & context: In a local field laboratory that is used by other courses and disciplines, students can more easily recognise how their own discipline fits into and contributes to a larger scientific context.

Interdisciplinarity: If the local field laboratory is used as a red thread throughout the curriculum, different aspects of the same site can be explored over several courses (geology, soil, climate, weather, plants, …)), thus building interdisciplinary aspects over time, increasing competence by exploring different facets of the same site.

Fostering a feeling of relatedness

Relatedness is the feeling of being part of a supportive group. That doesn’t mean the group has to be around someone all the time, but they have to know that it is there.

How a local field laboratory can help fostering a feeling of relatedness

Contribution to local community: If the local field laboratory is located close to campus, it is also located in the community where students live. Their research can thus have a direct relevance for their community, which can help them feel more connected both by doing something for the community as well as by sharing their learning with members of that community and getting their feedback.

Reducing the carbon footprint: Doing the slightly less exciting field lab that doesn’t go to an exotic location contributes to lowering our carbon footprint, which students might perceive as their personal contribution to something bigger than themselves.

How using the same local field laboratory with many different disciplines and courses can help fostering a feeling of relatedness

Larger context: If the local field laboratory is set up well, there is an overarching theme of all the measurements that are being taken, so that everybody is contributing to something beyond just doing their laboratory results, but much bigger, beyond their own discipline.

Interdisciplinarity: If several courses are at the field site simultaneously, students get to meet students and staff from other disciplines (formally in course context, or informally over dinner) and build a larger scientific network for themselves.

Other considerations that might be relevant to universities

Of course optimising student learning is not the only consideration that universities have, and it would be naive to assume that it was. So here are a couple of other relevant considerations:

Benefits of local field laboratories

  • lower travel costs
  • lower risks connected with long travel or dangerous field sites that the university might have to mitigate
  • easier logistics because of shorter transport that isn’t going across borders or oceans
  • lower carbon footprint!!
  • the field laboratory can be used for outreach “in the field”, inviting people into authentic research situations

Benefits of using the same local field laboratory with many different disciplines and courses can help

  • synergies: using equipment, buildings, … for multiple purposes
  • easier logistics since everything just needs to go to one place
  • red thread in curriculum: teachers meet (formally or informally), talk more, improve coherence between courses / find more interesting interdisciplinary questions

Is that really the full story?

Of course, many of these arguments are just one side of a coin, and local field sites might be best suited to undergraduate education and less so for advanced courses. Maybe one of the learning outcomes is for students to learn about dealing with logistics in a part of the world where everything works differently from what they are used to, and where they don’t speak the language. Or some things just cannot be taught in a certain area because that process just does not happen there. But then those arguments should be made specifically, and weight against the benefits listed above. But I think it’s definitely worthwhile to consider local field laboratories as an alternative to many established field trips to far-away locations: for carbon-footprint reasons just as much as for all the reasons listed above!

What are your thoughts on local field laboratories? And what references should I start with when I finally will have the time to start reading on the topic?

Reference

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American psychologist, 55(1), 68.

How much of the work should the teacher vs the student do? Teaching as a dance, inspired by Joe Hoyle

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This week I spent in a really interesting position: Sitting in the back of a workshop on “introduction to teaching and learning in higher education”, occasionally giving inputs, for example on microaggressions or Universal Design for Learning. And, this morning, about dance as a metaphor for learning and teaching.

I first came across this metaphor in Joe Hoyle’s blogpost on “how much of the work should you do?”. In there, he argues that “in a dance, both parties need to do half of the work but one party does have to lead. Likewise, in a class, both parties need to do half of the work but one party does have to lead. As the teacher, you are the one who has to lead. And, it is that leading that will encourage your students to get up and do their half of the work so that the class will go beautifully well every single class session”. For me, this metaphor works beautifully, not only about how much “work” people should put in, but also that there are different skills involved in teaching/leading and learning/following: the most excellent lead can only do so much if there isn’t a willingness to (learn how to) follow, and likewise the best follower cannot do much without a strong lead (or they might eventually even start leading themselves out of the follower role. I actually took up Lindy Hop, where you change partners all the time, with the explicit goal of training to not take over the lead but let myself be led by people who aren’t very good at leading, and adapting to different styles of (not) leading, hoping that I could transfer that into my professional life. Worked only so-so ;-)).

What I also really like is that in dance, it is becoming much more common that lead and follower switch roles — and this is where I see big potential to expand the metaphor towards co-creating learning. The lead can give the follower the chance to do “turns and stuff” (here my language to talk about dance in English is breaking down) by themselves, which might be compared to giving students a little choice, for example letting students do think-pair-share, where they get the opportunity to do something by themselves for a little while, but in a safe and controlled environment (see lower levels on our “co-creating learning in oceanography” framework). As we move higher up in the framework, we give students more freedom, but also more responsibility, until at the very top, we might actually consider giving up the lead and “just” follow the students’ lead. Which, again, doesn’t say about the amount of work or skill that goes into either learning or teaching, just about who takes on the lead.

So yeah, I think this is a really nice metaphor for teaching and learning :)

P.S.: For a beautiful example of how both leading and following takes enormous skill, check out the youtube video below.

Guest post by Chris Bore on #WaveWatching

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Chris Bore is one of the most loyal readers of my blog and has been for a long time, and now he wrote a beautiful post about #WaveWatching over on his own blog, and gave me permission to repost here. Thank you for loving #WaveWatching as much as I do, Chris!

A few years back I found oceanographer Mirjam Glessmer’s blog ‘Wave Watching’:

https://mirjamglessmer.com/wave-watching/

which is just what it says: a fascinating and insightful blog about watching waves – and what we can learn from doing so, not only about waves but about what they traversed, reflected off, diffracted around, broke over…

It spoke to me particularly because I was then watching waves almost obsessively: ripples on puddles, waves on our local lake, splashes from moorhens and coots and ducks on the canal; sea waves, coastal waves, every kind of wave. I wouldn’t quite say it risked losing me friends but people certainly got used to walking on and eventually looking back surprised to see me stopped staring at some interesting wave phenomenon. Continue reading →

Using student evaluations of teaching to actually improve teaching (based on Roxå et al., 2021)

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There are a lot of problems with student evaluations of teaching, especially when they are used as a tool without reflecting on what they can and cannot be used for. Heffernan (2021) finds them to be sexist, racist, prejudiced and biased (my summary of Heffernan (2021) here). There are many more factors that influence whether or not students “like” courses, for example whether they have prior interested in the topic — Uttl et al. (2013) investigate the interest in a quantitative vs non-quantitative course at a psychology department and find a difference in interest of nearly six standard deviations! Even the weather on the day a questionnaire is submitted (Braga et al., 2014), or the “availability of cookies during course sessions” (Hessler et al., 2018) can influence student assessment of teaching. So it is not surprising that in a meta-analysis, Uttl et al. (2017) find “no significant correlations between the [student evaluations of teaching] ratings and learning” and they conclude that “institutions focused on student learning and career success may want to abandon [student evaluation of teaching] ratings as a measure of faculty’s teaching effectiveness”.

But just because student evaluations of teaching might not be a good tool for summative assessment of quality, especially when used out of context, that does not mean they can’t be a useful tool for formative purposes. Roxå et al. (2021) argue that the problem is not the data in itself, but the way it is used, and suggest using them — as academics do every day with all kinds of data — as basis for a critical discourse, as a tool to drive improvement of teaching. They suggest also changing the terminology from “student rating of teaching” to “course evaluations”, to move the focus away from pretending to be able to measure quality of teaching, towards focussing on improving teaching.

In that 2021 article, Roxå et al. present different way to think about course evaluations, supported by a case study from the Faculty of Engineering at Lund University (LTH; which is where I work now! :-)). At LTH, the credo is that “more and better conversations” will lead to better results — in the context of the Roxå et al. (2021) article meaning that more and better conversations between students and teachers will lead to better learning. “Better” conversations are deliberate, evidence-based and informed by literature.

At LTH, the backbone for those more and better conversations are standardised course evaluations run at the end of every course. The evaluations are done using a standard tool, the “course experience questionnaire”, which focusses on the elements of teaching and learning that students can evaluate: their own experiences, for example if they perceived goals as clearly defined, or if help was provided. It is LTH policy that results of those surveys cannot influence career progressions; however, a critical reflection on the results is expected, and a structured discussion format has been established to support this:

The results from those surveys are compiled into a working report that includes the statistics and any free-text comments that an independent student deemed appropriate. This report is discussed in a 30-45 min lunch meeting between the teacher, two students, and the program coordinator. Students are recruited and trained specifically for their role in those meetings by the student union.

After the meeting and informed by it, each of the three parties independently writes a response to the student ratings, including which next steps should be taken. These three responses together with the statistics then form the official report that is being shared with all students from the class.

The discourse and reflection that is kick-started with the course evaluations, structured discussions and reporting is taken further by pedagogical trainings. At LTH, 200 hours of training are required for employment or within the first 2 years, and all courses include creating a written artefact (and often this needs to be discussed with critical friends from participants’ departments before submission) with the purpose of make arguments about teaching and learning public in a scholarly report, contributing to institutional learning. LTH also rewards excellence in teaching, which is not measured by results of evaluations, but the developments that can be documented based on scholarly engagement with teaching, as evidenced for example by critical reflection of evaluation results.

At LTH, the combination of carefully choosing an instrument to measure student experiences, and then applying it, and using the data, in a deliberate manner has led to a consistent increase of student evaluations of the last decades. Of course, formative feedback happening throughout the courses pretty much all the time will also have contributed. This is something I am wondering about right now, actually: What is the influence of, say, consistently done “continue, start, stop” feedbacks as compared to the formalized surveys and discussions around them? My gut feeling is that those tiny, incremental changes will sum up over time and I am actually curious if there is a way to separate their influence to understand their impact. But that won’t happen in this blogpost, and it also doesn’t matter very much: it shouldn’t be an “either, or”, but an “and”!

What do you think? How are you using course evaluations and formative feedback?

Braga, M., Paccagnella, M., & Pellizzari, M. (2014). Evaluating students’ evaluations of professors. Economics of Education Review, 41, 71-88.

Heffernan, T. (2021). Sexism, racism, prejudice, and bias: a literature review and synthesis of research surrounding student evaluations of courses and teaching. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 1-11.

Hessler, M., Pöpping, D. M., Hollstein, H., Ohlenburg, H., Arnemann, P. H., Massoth, C., … & Wenk, M. (2018). Availability of cookies during an academic course session affects evaluation of teaching. Medical Education, 52(10), 1064-1072.

Roxå, T., Ahmad, A., Barrington, J., Van Maaren, J., & Cassidy, R. (2021). Reconceptualizing student ratings of teaching to support quality discourse on student learning: a systems perspective. Higher Education, 83(1), 35-55.

Uttl, B., White, C. A., & Morin, A. (2013). The numbers tell it all: students don’t like numbers!. PloS one, 8(12), e83443.

Uttl, B., White, C. A., & Gonzalez, D. W. (2017). Meta-analysis of faculty’s teaching effectiveness: Student evaluation of teaching ratings and student learning are not related. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 54, 22-42.

Thinking about theories of change (based on Reinholz et al., 2021)

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I’ve spent quite some time thinking about how to apply theories of change to changing learning and teaching culture (initially in the framework of the iEarth/BioCEED course on “leading educational change”, but more and more beyond that, too). Kezar & Holcombe (2019) say we should use several theories of change simultaneously to make things happen, and Reinholz et al. (2021), describe the eight theories of change that are most commonly used in STEM, so the most pragmatic approach for me was to consider those eight. As I’ve been discussing and applying those theories of change in practice, my thinking about them has developed a bit, and so this is how they work in my head for now (also see figure above and below; it’s the same one).

As a general mindset, it is helpful to start out from what is good already (or at least kinda working) and use that to build upon, rather than tearing everything down and starting from scratch: This is the “Appreciative Inquiry” approach in a nutshell, and it makes sense intuitively, especially when the change isn’t coming from within (for myself, I kinda like the “forget everything and start from scratch” approach) but in the form of a boss, or an academic developer, or a teacher. This appreciative inquiry approach should be considered in the planning phase of any change, but also as a general principle throughout, so we keep building on what’s positive.

“Communities of Practice” is the framework feels most natural to me, and about which I’ve read the most, so this is how I naturally think about culture and changing culture. In a community of practice, people have a common interest which they practice together in a community. The community includes different legitimate roles: not everybody needs to participate and contribute equally or in the same way, or even be fully part of the community to be accepted and appreciate (see figure above/below). There are also legitimate trajectories, i.e. ways to increase or decrease involvement as new people enter or other people leave (see the people skiing into and out of the community in the figure). Objects foster exchange within (tuning fork in the figure) and across (book and violin in the figure) community boundaries, because they are manifestations of thoughts and practice that can be transferred, re-negotiated and modified according to whatever is needed.

Communities of practice have different stages from when they first form until they eventually die, and there are design principles that can help when cultivating communtities of practice, for example to make sure participation is voluntary, there is opportunity for dialogue within and across the communities’ boundaries, and the community is nurtured by someone facilitating regular interactions and new input. In this way, I think of communities of practice as a way to co-create learning and teaching situations, making sure everybody can play the role they would like to play — be who they want to become — and take on as much ownership of the community and the change as they want.

Other theories of change address different aspects that I want to integrate in and add to my thinking about communities of practice:

  • What is it that motivates individuals to do things in the first place? Generally, people are more likely to act on something if they want it and it is likely they’ll get it (-> Expectancy Value). This is depicted in the figure above/below as the considerations one might have before joining a meeting: How much time will I spend there, and is that time commitment worth the outcome I expect? All other things being the same, coffee might make it more appealing to go.
  • No matter how good an idea is, people are not equally likely to jump on an innovation right away. There are distinct stages of adaption, and different “types” of people are likely to adapt in different stages: Knowing about great new ideas does not make everybody want to try them out, so just letting people know is not going to convince everybody; many people might have to see successful ideas implemented by many others before they even consider them for themselves. (-> Diffusion of innovation)
  • Teacher thinking about change related to what & how to teach, who to teach and teach with, and education in general, is influenced by different contexts. These contexts include the personal context (demographics, nature & extent of preparation to teach, types & length of teaching experience, types and length of continued learning, subject & general), system context (rules and regulations, traditions, expectations, schedules, available funding and materials, physical space, subject area), and the general context. (-> Teacher-Centered Systemic Reform)
  • For a team to learn, the whole system needs to be considered: each individual needs to challenge their prejudices, assumptions, and mental models; and strive for personal growth and mastery, only then can a shared vision be developed and worked towards by a whole team. (-> Systems Theory)
  • In addition to people (goals, needs, agency) and symbols (beliefs and ways to communicate them) similarly to what is described above, it is often helpful to consider structures (roles, routines, incentives), and power distribution (hierarchies, coalitions, …) (-> Four Frames)

Lastly, there are three stages a person or community must go through in order to change successfully: “unfreezing” in order to create motivation for change (e.g. by realising dissatisfaction, and by feeling relatively certain that change is possible), “changing” (cognitively redefining based on feedback), and “refreezing” (making sure that the new normal is congruent with how the person wants to see themself and with the community) what should stay. (-> Paulsen & Feldmann)

And here is all of that in one figure! And maybe this figure is not so useful as a boundary object to share ideas from my brain to yours, but at least it really helped me structuring my thinking, and I am more than happy to discuss!

Kezar, A., & Holcombe, E. (2019). Leveraging Multiple Theories of Change to Promote Reform: An Examination of the AAU STEM Initiative. Educational Policy. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1177/0895904819843594

Reinholz, D., White, I., & Andrews, T. (2021). Change theory in STEM higher education: a systematic review. International Journal of STEM Education, 8(37), 1 – 22. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-021-00291-2

Thinking about “Universal Design for Learning”

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Something that has been on my mind a lot lately is how to make learning situations welcoming and accessible to all students. A very obvious response is to the “accessible” side of things is to think about UDL: “Universal Design for Learning” (Brand et al., 2012). The general idea is that, instead of making accommodations when they are needed for individuals, there are four main principles that should be incorporated to make all parts of the learning process accessible to all learners:

  1. Multiple means of representation: This is about how students can take up our content, i.e. providing it in multiple formats so it can be accessed using different senses, and tailored to specific needs
  2. Multiple means of engagement: This is about how we motivate both initial and sustained student engagement with the content, providing multiple entry points, perspectives, etc.
  3. Multiple means for action and expression: This is about how students physically manipulate and communicate about the content via different options
  4. Multiple means of assessment: This is about how we test student understanding in different ways

When all these principles are met, learners with disabilities or with conditions potentially hindering their learning don’t have to disclose this information to the teacher, and courses don’t have to be adapted to specific students’ special needs ad hoc — they are already readily accessible. They also cater to students’ different circumstances and ways of thinking — maybe they are more used to certain ways of doing things than others for cultural reasons, or they simply have preferences (like listening to audiobooks over reading, so it can happen on a walk or driving to university).

There are many comprehensive checklists for UDL available online, if you would like to go that route. I personally found them a little overwhelming (which shows how important it is for me to actually think more about it!). So below, I share my thoughts on what UDL might mean in the context of teaching oceanography, following the Brand et al. (2012)’s structure. Note that I am just barely scratching the surface here, so watch this space for more and better information in the weeks to come!

Continue reading →

Currently reading: “Microaggressions: Intervening in three acts” by Thurber & DiAngelo (2018)

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I’m currently thinking so much about how to make academia a more welcoming and accessible environment, and just read the article “Microaggressions: Intervening in three acts” by Thurber & DiAngelo, which I think everybody should read.

It describes three situations in which microaggressions occurred, one from the perspective of perpetrator, witness and target* each, and how the authors reacted in each of these situations. But it is not a preachy “of course this is what you do!” type of article, but nuanced (this somehow sounds so condescending, but I can’t find a better term) reflections on the reactions are shared.

The vignettes of the three situations are well worth a read (but I feel like they are not my stories to share, so go to the original article), as are the more general prompts of what to consider in the different roles, which I do share below along with my thoughts on them.

When you are a witness of a microaggression:

  • “Rather than ask what will be gained by intervening, ask what will I lose by not acting“. While we cannot know what the effects of a reaction will be, not acting definitely comes with the cost that the target of the microaggression will notice that nobody is standing up for them, and that the inactive witness will have to deal with the memory and the implications on their and others perception of themselves of not having acted. Focussing on the costs to the victim (especially if the target is from a marginalized group and is likely to be the target of many microaggressions which might accumulate to a death of a thousand paper cuts) rather than to myself is definitely helpful advise here.
  • “Clarify your goals”. Immediate intervention might not be as well thought-through as revisiting the situation later, possibly seeking out only the perpetrator to address their comment. But letting targets know that you are noticing — and objecting — to them being targeted, that you are an ally, adverting harm from targets, or showing other witnesses one way of intervening in the situation, might be more important than reacting perfectly.
  • “Ground your actions in care”. The most thought-provoking point for me was the framing of “calling someone in” rather than “calling someone out” on their actions, meaning inviting them into conversations about why something they said and did was harmful to someone else so that the perpetrator is not just shut up, but might actually be open to reflecting on what happened, hopefully learning from the situation.

When you are the perpetrator of a microaggression:

  • “Look into rather than away from our oppressive patterns”. Since many microaggressions are both unintentional and we are unaware of them as perpetrators, we need to use being called out (or in!) in our own as a learning opportunity about oppressive patterns that we are not aware of. Becoming aware of having been the perpetrator is obviously a painful process, but the only way to make sure we don’t make the same mistake again is to understand what the mistake actually was and where it came from.
  • “Accountability is a process, not a procedure”. This is such an important point! There is really no easy way to just apologise and move on; we need to commit to continuously reflecting and seeking awareness of oppressive patterns.
  • “Seek restorative action”. We can’t undo the harm we did, but maybe we can lessen its impact a little. This includes acknowledging that we caused harm, inviting accounts of and listening to the impact it had on others, and sharing our commitment to, and plans for, ensuring that we don’t repeat the same mistake.

When you are the target of a microaggression:

  • “Your first responsibility is to yourself“. Being the target does something to us, and it is not only ok, but important, to put the proverbial oxygen mask on ourselves first. So often we (are made to) feel guilty for not speaking up in situations where we are the target, where we might have stood up for ourselves and others. But this is where we need to have compassion with ourselves. Sometimes getting through the situation is hard enough and we have enough to deal with by just dealing with ourselves, without taking on other people, too.
  • “Consider possibilities for action”. The helpful advice in this is that even we might not have reacted in the situation, or not in a way we are happy with afterwards, this was not a “speak now or forever hold your peace” moment. We can always revisit the situation with a new strategy for what we want to achieve, whether on the personal relationship level or on a wider systemic level.
  • “Reclaim your voice”. The most interesting thought for me here was that as a victim of microaggressions, we do not owe it to anyone to speak up about it. The victim is in a disadvantaged position and protecting their mental health and/or keeping a low profile might be a perfectly valid choice. And as above: not speaking up in the situation does not mean that we cannot speak up at any later stage if we wish to do so, thus reclaiming our voice. On our own terms.

*When writing this blog post, I noticed that I wrote “victim” instead of target, and went back and changed it. The label “victim” implies that someone is powerless and helpless. And while they might in fact be, or feel that way, the label “target” includes the option of them changing the situation, and makes it more obvious that injustice or harm is done to them by others, rather than implying that they being the receiver says anything about them.

Amie Thurber & Robin DiAngelo (2018). “Microaggressions: Intervening in three acts”, Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work, 27:1, 17-27, DOI: 10.1080/15313204.2017.1417941

Thinking about decolonising the curriculum (inspired by Dessent et al., 2022)

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[Edit 5.9.2022: I just read “Decolonization is not a metaphor” by Tuck & Yang (2012) and I am very much using decolonization as a metaphor in the blog post below. That does not mean that my thoughts are bad or not important — I think there is still a lot of good stuff in them! — but what I am doing is not decolonialization. So please keep that in mind!]

I just read the article “Decolonizing the Undergraduate Chemistry Curriculum: An Account of How to Start” by Dessent et al. (2022) and found it a really nice and encouraging introduction to a topic that might otherwise seem scary to tackle. Because what does “decolonisation” even mean? If we don’t have colonies any more as a nation, or never had them as a community of scientists, what is there to get rid of? There are of course many structures and relationships that either originated in a colonial system or from similar traditions. Like for example the way we talk about where knowledge comes from and how we hadrly ever question what kind of knowledge is included in curricula. Not reflecting about this is very likely propagating injustice and definitely limiting. Decolonialising in the sense of Dessent et al. (2022) means to “develop a more complete scientific perspective that better includes global voices.” And shouldn’t that always be our goal? For me, this ties in super well with efforts towards diversity, equity and inclusion that I want to strengthen.

The authors present small, manageable steps towards decolonialisation that can be approached one by one rather than all at once (and  I am presenting them here with my own thoughts on what that could mean in oceanography):

  • finding best practice examples of decolonialising a science department. This is such an obvious starting point, but one worth mentioning. Reading this article is a good start!
  • collect good practice examples that already exist at the institution — a great way to increase buy-in and make the efforts feel bottom-up rather than top-down. In oceanography, I know for example of efforts to highlight the role of women: Did you know that Eunice Newton Foote first proposed in 1856 that atmospheric CO2 concentrations would change atmospheric temperatures, a discovery that is commonly attributed to John Tyndall three years later? Or showing Polynesian stick charts that use waves for navigation is quite common in introductory oceanography. But even just writing this, I opened something like 15 new browser tabs with more information on how they worked, because I realise that despite my fascination with all things waves, and despite having showed pictures of them in introductory classes, I have only a very vague understanding of them — much more vague than all the other things I would have shown in that class.
  • compiling resources that can be used as starting points for others, or several in their case: (A) a list of Black scientists that have done important work in their field, and (B) a list of scientists from the Indian continent. This point that mostly white men are highlighted is a very obvious starting point in the oceanography context I “grew up in” — at the institutes both in Hamburg and in Bergen it would be very easy to get the impression that all relevant research in oceanography had pretty much happened by our forefathers at each of the institutions, respectively, or at the very least involving cooperation with them. There is a lot of patriotism and pride and culture etc entangled with a tradition of following in the footsteps of Bjerknes & co, but focussing on this too much effectively makes contributions of others invisible. So starting to compile lists of scientists from other regions of the world, or with specific underrepresented characteristics, is a useful start!
  • making sure the images displayed in the department show diversity. This brings to mind the galleries of historic oil paintings of all the oceanographic celebrities that are all old white men… Which are all somehow tied in with the history of the institution, yes, but that also paint a very one-sided picture! Plenty of room for improvement there!
  • celebrate Black History month. Or maybe, thinking back to the Polynesian stick charts, there are events that could be organised around other traditions that we bring in? I watched a super interesting YouTube video of a 2017 seminar on “Wave Piloting in the Marshall Islands” and they say that wave piloting is easier by night because you aren’t distracted by so many other impressions as when you see the waves. Maybe we could include a session on reading waves in the dark? Or we could look at what other opportunities we might have to showcase diversity, like the international women’s day.
  • survey the culture of the department to figure out next steps — always good to get an idea of the baseline we are working with, and the specific needs at our own place!

The authors report on how they approached this with a work group, while always transparent towards the whole department, first focussing on specific parts of their teaching but with the intent to, little by little, look at all areas.

The authors also suggest different strategic approaches that could be taken individually or combined:

  • Looking at the impact of the field in different global contexts. Oceanography is inherently a global science, since the ocean covers more than 70% of the Earth’s surface, and 40% of the world’s population lives within 100km of the coast. But looking at what we teach, neither the area nor the population are represented well.
  • Diverse histories that don’t only focus on our own tradition. As I described above, I have newly discovered my fascination with the polynesian stick charts, and I’ll go looking for more examples like this. With so many people living so close to the coast, there must be so much knowledge that I am not aware of! Like the old tsunami stones in Japan, warning people that anything closer to the sea is in danger of tsunamis, which were mostly forgotten for a long time.
  • Role models! From different backgrounds and cultures for decolonialisation specifically, but also from different minority groups for diversity more generally. Off the top of my head, this reminds me of “OceanInsights — musings of a blind oceanographer“, a blog by blind sea-going oceanographer Amy Bower. And I’m embarassed to say that right now, I can’t really think of other good examples!
  • Science as a global endeavour, not just happening in the ivory tower or by a lone genius. This comes down to for example how we speak about science, for example by giving out Nobel prices to mostly individuals and not the whole networks of people without whom the research would not have been possible.
  • Ethical considerations. Who benefits from our research? Why do we investigate certain questions and not others? These questions are asked by far too little (at least by me — I usually go for what I find most interesting at any given moment).
  • Structures and hierarchies in science. How do they influence what we do, and do we really want that influence in that way? Important topic to discuss and tackle!
  • Student voice and leadership. The authors found that the initiative to take on decolonisation of the curriculum came from the students, and I think that’s one reason I’ve been so interested in co-creating recently: Because students show us where we are (maybe even unknowingly) stuck in traditions, and inspire change. Of course, we can’t rely on students driving changes that we already know need to happen, but we should take their perspective into consideration to show us where our blindspots are.

So yep, these are my thoughts on that article, and now I need to figure out how to actually translate it into action. Which I am very inspired to do, so thank you, Dessent et al., for the great article!

Dessent, C. E., Dawood, R. A., Jones, L. C., Matharu, A. S., Smith, D. K., & Uleanya, K. O. (2021). Decolonizing the Undergraduate Chemistry Curriculum: An Account of How to Start. Journal of Chemical Education.