Who was involved in your partnership work, and how did everyone become involved?
This project was a collaboration between scientists/mathematicians and historians at the University. The participating STEM departments were Chemistry, Engineering Science, Maths, Materials, Physics and Biology. We partnered with colleagues and students from the Faculty of History and the History of Science Museum which were integral contributors to this project.
Students with a background or interest in the above subjects were recruited as interns to work on the project over the summer months. They were recruited via a call for applications that detailed what the project would entail, who we were looking to participate, what they could expect to gain from taking part, and what impact they would be a part of. Students from the University of Oxford and from other UK universities were welcome to apply.
What did you set out to achieve in your student-staff partnership work?
The Diversifying STEM Curriculum Project aimed to bring the conversation and actions around decolonising and diversifying curriculum in higher education into the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) disciplines. It aimed to do this by researching and promoting materials that undergraduate STEM faculty could use to further decolonise and diversify their own courses.
When and where did you work together?
This project launched in summer 2020, with the first group of interns joining us online in summer 2021.
How did you work in partnership?
Students and staff worked together to develop project ideas and agree on a topic that would highlight the global historical and social context to scientific research; the diverse range of people who have contributed to scientific knowledge construction; colonial contexts in which ideas about whose knowledge is ‘scientific’ have been developed and deployed and their consequences for indigenous knowledge; and/or historical work revising older narratives of scientific progress. Students and staff then worked together to research these historical contexts and develop an online repository of material for undergraduate lecturers to integrate into their courses. Students and staff hosted a launch event for the finished materials, with students presenting the outcomes of their work.
Throughout this process, students met with academic/staff and DPhil supervisors either in-person or over Microsoft Teams depending on where they were located for the internship. In these meetings, students and staff exchanged their ideas and knowledge relating to the project and co-decided what direction to move forward with. Relying on each other’s subject knowledge and experiences teaching and learning the course material, students and staff were able to develop resources that catered to both student and staff experiences and that were easily usable in existing courses and sessions.
Their projects can be viewed on the Diversifying STEM Curriculum Projects 2021 webpage. The 2022 projects are now also available to view on the Diversifying STEM Curriculum Projects 2022 webpage. We are currently reviewing the programme to consider increased engagement and to ensure it has sustained and positive impact on our MPLS departments and existing curriculum.
What did you learn from working in partnership?
You only need to browse the project outcomes from the summer 2021 and summer 2022 projects to see the incredible learnings that these projects brought about.
Bringing students into these projects really brought them to life and enabled the projects to move at a pace that would not have been possible without them. Their passion for the work they were doing and their excitement really came through in project meetings and during the final launch events at the History of Science Museum.
We hope to continue running this project and giving as many students and staff the opportunity to be involved as possible. We are currently reviewing the programme and considering how best to increase engagement and accessibility to the existing curriculum.
