1. Topic Introduction: This step is critical to generate excitement among learners. This starts from surveying the class by asking about their general knowledge on the topic of interest. For instance the students are asked about their familiarity with LEDs as a more-and-more prominent light source in their daily lives. General questions about the meaning of colors and their relationship to wavelengths are asked and the general knowledge of the class is surveyed and if necessary, the relevant physics topics are reviewed. It ensures that the whole class will be at the same level of background knowledge for the topic to be covered. It is essential in generating excitement and remove stress of learning new material for the whole class and to provide equal learning opportunity.

2. Attention Solicitation: Upon introduction to a topic, a dialogue is initiated by the instructor with the students by asking them questions and inquiries based on their daily life experiences. For instance, the following questions are typically asked from the students to attract their attention to the significance of light spectrum: “Why is human eye sensitive to the visible wavelength, while a snake’s eye receives infrared?, What is the difference between sun light and fluorescent light source as both are sources of white light?, Why is the latter not considered a high quality light?” The students readily do not have a prepared answers to these questions, although they deal with them on a daily basis. Therefore, it intrigues them to find the answer.

Importantly, these questions should not be targeted to the whole class; instead, they should be asked from individuals to start a conversation. This opportunity may be used to build upon and involve minorities in the topic of discussion by inviting them to participate.

3. Delivery: Once the attention of the class is secure, the answers are delivered to the students through a logical build-up by referring to the underlying math for the phenomenon of discussion. This ensures that the lecture is purposeful and signifies the physical modeling behind it. Fig. 2 shows one possible representation of the answer to previous inquiries.

4. Reinforcement: Finally, new inquiries are made based on the newly gained knowledge. The students are asked to form small groups and collaborate on finding the answer and presenting their findings to the rest of the class in a debate format. In our example of spectrum of LED, the students are asked to relate the energy of a photon to its wavelength and based on that justify why an LED with shorter wavelength will typically require a larger bias voltage to start emitting light. This step serves as a bridge to experimental work in the lab.

• Mandatory participation: It is necessary to ensure that the learners all will gain a minimum required knowledge from the course material. A mandatory credited participation will serve this purpose. This could be achieved by asking each student to present a project, explain the solution to homework problems to the whole class, or merely participate in the dialogues with the instructor. This will not only help the instructor gauge the progress of the students, but also paves the way for equalizing learning opportunity for all groups. Importantly, the instructor has to make sure that this is a judgement-free practice. Students have to be reassured that it is their participation that matters, and not whether they know the right answer. Incorporation of peer instruction may also be essential in furtherance of influence of participation.¹⁰

• Bonus Projects: Experiments should be designed to not be cumbersome, otherwise it would result in boredom and unnecessary stress with limited educational value. For instance for our light source spectrum experiments, the students should be provided with an easy-to-use device such as an Ocean Optics hand held spectrometer (Fig. ??), to attain the spectrum. The students may be provided with the fundamentals of operation of the device, however, it should not be focus of the experiment. Rather, a bonus project may be assigned for those who are interested to go above and beyond the required course work. My experience indicates that under-represented students are more inclined in completing these bonus project. This observation may be in line with the results of a recent study on gender-equality paradox STEM education,¹¹ where it is suggested that “life-quality pressures in less gender-equal countries promote girls’ and women’s engagement with STEM subjects.”

• Leadership assignment: Commonly, in a group of three, a student becomes an implied leader, while another student will be a mediator, between the leader and the third member. Through instructor intervention, these roles may be switched and controlled. For instance in the LED experiment, the implied leader is typically the student who communicates the results with the instructor, and asks questions regarding the validity of the spectrum data. By establishing a group dialogue targeted at the other groups members the leadership role may be switched and modified. This provides an opportunity to implicitly provide leadership opportunity for minorities in a group.

• Individuality recognition: Finally, as human beings everyone is mostly receptive to their names; therefore, as an instructor I always call my students by their first names and give them the deserved recognition to the whole audience during a lab or lecture. This is more crucial and should be practiced more often about minority students, to ensure they develop a sense of belonging to the class. This simple step, also plays a significant role in setting class culture and promotes involvement and equality among everyone.