Dr. Scott Grapin, Assistant Professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning at the University of Miami's School of Education and Human Development, demonstrates his commitment to empowering multilingual learners through his research in justice-centered STEM education. Funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Grapin's work targets K-12 students, particularly middle schoolers, with the goal of integrating STEM knowledge with social justice and real-world applications.
Grapin’s project adopts a distinctive approach by blending various STEM subjects—science, data science, and computational modeling—to tackle societal issues that disproportionately affect marginalized communities.
“Justice-centered STEM education is engaging students with societal challenges, using the tools of STEM disciplines to help explain and develop solutions for those challenges,” said Grapin.
Focusing on topics such as COVID-19’s differential impacts, Grapin’s curriculum empowers students to use STEM to explore systemic inequalities rather than view disparities as community deficiencies.
“We want students to actually use STEM knowledge and practices to engage with STEM-related societal issues... COVID-19 was a societal issue that had disproportionate impacts on historically marginalized communities,” said Grapin.
In a key component of the project, multilingual learners examine COVID-19 data from multiple countries, using their transnational knowledge to interpret global health trends.
“Students are encouraged to look at global data... maybe you're looking at Argentina versus the United States and saying, 'I know why that happened there because there was something going on in the political context,'” said Grapin. This asset-based approach to multilingual learners’ knowledge helps reshape STEM fields to be more inclusive and relevant.
“It’s not about 'catching up' multilingual learners with their peers... they bring knowledge and tools that others may not have, which we can leverage to think differently about how STEM is done,” said Grapin.
Positioning STEM as a tool for social engagement and systemic understanding, Grapin’s research emphasizes an equity-centered approach that respects and utilizes the diverse experiences students bring to the classroom.
“If you know that certain communities have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, you can interpret that as something wrong with the community... or you can recognize a systemic problem contributing to these impacts,” said Grapin.
His ongoing collaboration with teachers and New York City school systems is vital to refining this curriculum, aiming to shape a STEM education that is accessible, meaningful, and just for all learners.
Some of Grapin’s recent work includes the article, "Translanguaging in Formative Assessment: Formative Assessment from a Translanguaging Perspective in the NGSS Classroom," published in Science and Children https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00368148.2024.2366011?src=.
This research, co-authored with Drs. Abigail Schwenger, Nicole Altamirano, Alison Haas, and Okhee Lee, explores how formative assessment practices that embrace translanguaging—using a student’s full communicative repertoire—can enhance science learning in linguistically diverse classrooms. Specifically, the study highlights a fifth-grade teacher’s methods for fostering translanguaging to closely follow and support students' scientific thinking during a lesson on plant growth.
Grapin’s NSF project also draws from various supporting resources that bolster the instructional framework, such as:
- Peer-reviewed Journal articles exploring translanguaging and STEM education:
- Teaching and Learning STEM through Equity-focused Approaches
- Multilingual Perspectives in STEM Classrooms
- STEM Equity and Inclusion in Education
- Instructional resources:
- Understanding COVID-19 Disparities Using Computational Modeling
The NSF project incorporates computational models to visualize and design solutions to information spread in health crises, such as the figures provided.
