Stephanie Marin Rothman has been teaching as a Lecturer since 2011, since she earned her M.S. in Biology and B.S. in Environmental Biology from Cal Poly Pomona. Stephanie currently teaches online Life Science and Human Sexuality and has been teaching online since 2014. With support from the Chancellor’s Doctoral Incentive Program (CDIP) she is currently working towards her Ed.D. in Science Education through Indiana University, with a minor in Sexual and Reproductive Health Promotion. Stephanie’s current research interest involves using qualitative methods to explore how active learning and inclusive teaching practices can be used to close achievement gaps for students of historically underrepresented backgrounds in science courses.
In Stephanie’s thirteen years of college teaching, she has always prioritized creating relevant and engaging courses that serve the diverse population of her students. Her philosophy of teaching is based on the theory of constructivism, where she creates classes that value students’ perspectives, experiences, and cultures. Accessibility is the foundation of Stephanie’s classes, where she ensures every student has the chance to succeed. She ensures that her students feel capable and included and makes her classes interesting and relevant to their lives while providing a multitude of opportunities for them to learn and succeed, such as by using a variety of assessments and offering students choices with their assignments. Stephanie recently conducted a self-study, examining her instruction through a critical researcher lens, and she will continue to reflect on and improve her teaching and research throughout her career. Stephanie also recently published action research where she explored her college biology students’ perceptions of the Nature of Science (NOS). After conducting a literature review, she added explicit NOS instruction and incorporated a reflective skeletal notes assignment so her students could relate the existing course content to the aspects of NOS, which lead to many of her students developing a more informed understanding.
Stephanie is focusing her energy on improving science education for all, inspiring the next generation to work towards making the world a better place. The coalition of citizen/scientists who work towards a better future should be diverse so that the needs of all are considered. To serve our diverse world, science must be for everyone, and she is devoted to creating learning environments where students are allowed to become the scientists that they always had the potential to be. Stephanie’s goal as a teacher-scholar is to make science education inclusive and accessible to all students from a wide diversity of backgrounds, perspectives, and experiences. Her research and teaching methods utilize student-centered strategies such as active learning, inclusivity, and accessibility to reach every single student. Despite great progress in equity, achievement gaps in science unfortunately persist for students from historically underrepresented backgrounds. Her research will explore ways to close these gaps and to give all students the opportunity to achieve their goals, improve their lives, and work towards a better future for the world.
