Cornell recently hosted the first annual Teaching as Research National Conference and I was able to participate through the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) Program. I participated in SOTL in collaboration with Gregor Siegmend (a fellow Cornell EEB grad student) during the Fall and Spring semesters. We’re interested in how gender influences social dynamics in the classroom and conducted a small project to better understand the social dynamics in Cornell’s Intro Evolution (BioEE 1780), an active-learning (“flipped”) course.
One of the primary take-aways from our project: male and female students interact differently in the classroom, with female students interacting more with the instructors during small group work and male students more often by volunteering during lecture. Because instructors determine the types of interactions that can occur in the classroom, they can influence whether female or male students are more likely to participate in class.
Stepfanie M. Aguillon, PhD 