Note: There are two threads in this example that it is clear we’ll have to tease out; for now, they’re interwoven. Thus, there are two titles and two sets of keywords.
Using Scientific Failure to Build Student Confidence (Thread 1)
Adapting Content to Feature Issues that Differentially Affect Marginalized
Communities (Thread 2)
Bob Galloway
Biomedical Engineering
Vanderbilt University
Keywords: Compensating for Differential Preparation, Confidence (Thread 1)
Keywords: Adapting Content, Real-World Application (Thread 2)
Abstract: Bob Galloway, professor of biomedical engineering, explicitly discusses scientific failure with students in all of his courses in an attempt to encourage students with less scientific training to take an active part in the class. This strategy elicits more participation from students who are often reticent or shy. Additionally, in his instrumentation course for majors, he selects content that draws attention to often-marginalized groups in the STEM fields. In so doing, Galloway attempts to help marginalized students see the relevance of science to their lives and their communities.
Storyline: Bob Galloway sees the each of the students as unique individuals with strengths and weaknesses that can be used. As such, his ultimate goal is to help each student perform to their highest level.
Much of this attitude is conveyed to the students during the first days of class when he tells them that this class is 50% about learning and 50% about thinking. For Galloway, the knowledge they bring into the classroom is only part of the equation. How they did in previous classes isn’t the limiting factor. He explicitly tells them that what they’ve been and who they are (A student, F student, marginalized, etc.) does not determine who they can become and that learning to think can change their world. First and foremost, he emphasizes that as engineers they are thinkers. In fact he wants them to know that the worst they can do is not to try. He finds that this surprises students who tend to think that giving the wrong answer is the fatal error.
Galloway makes these statements to create an atmosphere of partnership in the classroom; a partnership of professor and student working against lack of understanding and overcoming fear; a partnership of student and student working in teams to benefit from their shared knowledge.
During the course he continues this emphasis by using classroom examples that highlight failure, specifically failures in design and implementation which theoretically should have worked. He then shows how learning came out of examining the failure. In this way, students are shown that failing is actually a normal part of science.
In addition to leveling the playing field in this way, he also uses a lot of peer-peer teaching during office hours. Not only do the students learn from each other but the weaker students

are often the first to office hours and therefore get to share they’re experience with the higher achieving students.
Galloway also addresses issues related to people of color and women during his course on instrumentation. Throughout the course, he focuses on instrumentation that affects these groups and discusses the ways science is or is not successfully communicated to and utilized by these groups. Some examples of this include teaching about breast cancer and mammograms or diabetes’ diagnostic and monitoring equipment. Mammograms are uncomfortable even if they are effective. With today’s technology there should be ways to make them more effective and less uncomfortable thereby removing one barrier to usage of this diagnostic test. Diabetes is especially prominent in low-income minority groups. Yet monitoring and diagnostic equipment can be expensive. In these ways, Galloway helps the students see the needs of particular groups and think about the importance of considering human diversity when designing instruments
By these various methods he hopes that each student takes more from the class than they would without the emphases he chooses. He said, “even if every student in the class was a blue-eyed blonde, each of them would be different and think differently.” So, he plans his classes for a diverse group of learners of every sort.
Commentary: This example shows two ways of dealing with diversity in the classroom. He deals with diversity of educational background among his students directly. Knowing that each student enters the class with strengths and weaknesses, and that many students feel inadequate when they compare their academic background to other students’ preparation in background subjects, the professor stresses using their strength and not any perceived failures from the past. Student performance is often limited by their own perceptions of their ability. This approach of clearing-the-slate allows students who believe themselves to be weaker to gain confidence and thus perform better.
Additionally, by addressing the medical instrumentation needs of often-marginalized populations, students from these groups see that the course deals with issues they may find relevant to their lives. For students who are unaware of the needs of these groups, this approach helps them to see that understanding other groups within the community may lead to better medical solutions for all parts of the population.
Recommendations for Adaptation:
1) Examine the learning goals of your course curriculum. Think about what is heavily linked to prior knowledge/training and expertise demonstrated in prerequisite courses. What portion of the material and concepts are new to the entire group?
2) Decide which you want your students to master – concepts or data or what combination of the two. Then emphasize the ability of each student to come to mastery of that portion. All of the STEM disciplines rely heavily on the application of concepts in the thought processes of practitioners.
3) Find examples of experimental failures within your discipline and, if possible, find ones related to the content you are teaching. You may even be able to share some of your own experimental failures. Help students see what was attempted and why, but also why the failure was a learning experience. This will not only reinforce the idea

that experiments are a string of attempts many of which fail, but it will demonstrate for students how to examine the process incrementally.
4) Think about where the content of your course touches on real-life. Are some segments of the population at a disadvantage in having access to the results of this work, i.e. expensive testing equipment for blood sugar/diabetes at-home monitoring, and how might the students in your class seek to address this differential? Are some segments of the population addressed more specifically by the material, i.e. African-
Americans and sickle-cell anemia? Be creative in thinking through the implications of your topic. Each group you touch on may help a student in the class feel the relevance of the material for them and others like them.
Things to Consider:
1) Grading rubrics must match what you want to reinforce for your students.
Carefully select activities and problems that you allow students to demonstrate concept mastery, if that is what you state in the beginning. Consider designing or allowing for failure in controlled ways in your classroom. Minimize contradictions between your stated goals and what you test for to avoid confusing students.
2) The reinforcement of this idea that past performance does not dictate present success must be a theme that runs throughout the course. Some of your students will not believe your statements until much later in the course than others. If possible, verbal praise for attempting new things will help to reinforce. Helping students to deconstruct a failure and examine it will also help them to learn in the scientific manner.
References:
Nemeth, C.J. (1985). Dissent, Group Process, and Creativity: The Contribution of Minority
Influence. Advances in Group Processes, (2), 57-75.