Building Classroom and Organizational Structure Around Positive Cultural Values

TL;DR

The paper describes the Compass Project at UC Berkeley, which builds a positive educational and organizational culture around shared values to improve physics education, foster diversity, and enhance student retention.

Contribution

It introduces a framework where shared cultural values shape classroom and organizational structures to support diversity and student success in physics education.

Findings

Community participation in values shaping enhances engagement.

Shared values inform organizational and classroom practices.

The project improves retention of underrepresented students.

Abstract

The Compass Project is a self-formed group of graduate and undergraduate students in the physical sciences at UC Berkeley. Our goals are to improve undergraduate physics education, provide opportunities for professional development, and increase retention of students-especially those from populations typically underrepresented in the physical sciences. Compass fosters a diverse, collaborative student community by providing a wide range of services, including a summer program and fall/spring seminar courses. We describe Compass's cultural values, discuss how community members are introduced to and help shape those values, and demonstrate how a single set of values informs the structure of both our classroom and organization.We emphasize that all members of the Compass community participate in, and benefit from, our cultural values, regardless of status as student, teacher, or otherwise.