IBL SIGMAA Spring Workshop Series: Sandra Laursen

As we pass the two-year mark since the pandemic arrived in the US and instigated the Great Online Pivot in higher education, we can also look back on a great variety of teaching experiments – successful or not – that these two years represent. In the spirit of not letting a good crisis go to waste, I will draw on data about mathematics instructors’ teaching practices to propose some important lessons about inquiry teaching learned from our collective crash course in trying to do it online. Using as guidance the four pillars of inquiry-based mathematics education, we will reflect together on what we did, what we learned, and how we can use these lessons as we move forward into a teaching and learning future that, whatever it looks like, will not look like the past.


Speaker Bio:
Sandra Laursen maintains interests in both research and practice in science and mathematics education. As senior research associate and director of Ethnography & Evaluation Research at the University of Colorado Boulder, she leads research and evaluation studies focusing on education and career paths in STEM fields. Her research interests center on professional preparation for teaching, advancement and visibility of women and people of color in STEM careers and academia, and organizational change in higher education. She is also interested in inquiry-based teaching and learning, and in all ways to improve STEM education in and out of the classroom. She has a Ph.D. in chemistry by way of U. C. Berkeley and is proud co-champion of the 2021 Grinnell College Alumni Spelling Bee.