STEM Education Innovation Programs

Submit a Program Description » The goal of this database is to serve as a searchable collection of effective practices and programs that support improving undergraduate STEM education. Use the text search and the boxes at the right to narrow the collection based on particular aspects that you are interested in.

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Results 1 - 10 of 40 matches

Teaching Rubric for Tenure Process
Chad Brassil, University of Nebraska at Lincoln
Developed a teaching rubric as a faculty in order to reduce variance among tenure cases.

Program Components: Institutional Systems:Incentive/Reward Systems, Evaluating Teaching, Evaluating Promotion and Tenure
Target Audience: Tenured/Tenure-track Faculty, Institution Administration
Point of Intervention: Major/Department
Institution Type: Doctorate-granting Universities:Highest Research Activity

STEM-R: Modeling STEM Retention and Departure across Physics, Mathematics, and Engineering
Travis York, APLU
Researchers at West Virginia University will develop a new theoretical framework for STEM departure that will detail the reasons why students leave STEM majors. The research extends Tinto's university departure model to include the career exploration process where a student leaves STEM but remains in college. The framework will be developed and tested by extensive measurement of demographic, social, academic, affective (self-efficacy, self-esteem, belonging), career exploration/aspirations and psychological variables at four longitudinal points in physics and mathematics introductory class sequences required for many STEM majors.

Target Audience: Tenured/Tenure-track Faculty, Undergraduate Majors, Undergraduate Non-Majors, Institution Administration
Point of Intervention: College/School

Teaching Quality Framework Initiative
Noah Finkelstein, University of Colorado at Boulder
This effort provides framework for supporting and assessing teaching quality across all departments on a campus (i.e. a Teaching Quality Framework, or TQF). The TQF has two essential elements: (1) categories that define teaching as a scholarly activity, and (2) a change process for implementation. To assess teaching quality, we draw on three perspectives--faculty members, their students, and their peers--as sources of data. The TQF scholarly categories are held constant across departments, but each department contextualizes them according to the specifics of their discipline. The implementation strategy is grounded in theories of organizational change and is designed to lead to campus-wide adoption. This strategy is not a top-down mandate; it focuses on bringing together key faculty leaders and departments and providing them with a structure to co-create, test, and evaluate an assessment system in the context that makes the most sense to them.

Activity Types: Teaching Circles/Learning Communities
Program Components: Professional Development:Course Evaluation, Student Assessment, Institutional Systems:Evaluating Teaching, Personnel/Hiring, Incentive/Reward Systems, Evaluating Promotion and Tenure
Target Audience: Non-tenure Track Faculty, Tenured/Tenure-track Faculty, Institution Administration, College/University Staff
Point of Intervention: Institution
Institution Type: Doctorate-granting Universities:Highest Research Activity

UC Davis Bridge to the Doctorate Program
Travis York, APLU
The UC Davis Bridge to the Doctorate program is funded by the National Science Foundation's Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP). The LSAMP program assists universities and colleges in their efforts to significantly increase the numbers of students matriculating into and successfully completing high quality degree programs in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines in order to diversify the STEM workforce. Particular emphasis is placed on transforming STEM education through innovative, evidence-based recruitment and retention strategies, and relevant educational experiences in support of racial and ethnic groups historically underrepresented in STEM disciplines: African Americans, Hispanic Americans, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Native Pacific Islanders.

Activity Types: Teaching Circles/Learning Communities
Program Components: Supporting Students:Tutoring, Learning Communities, Academic Support, Mentoring Program, Scholarships, Grants, Workstudy, Outreach:Public Outreach
Target Audience: Graduate Students, First Generation College Students, Undergraduate Majors, Underrepresented Minority Students
Point of Intervention: Major/Department

Unconscious Bias Faculty Training
Travis York, APLU
The Office of Faculty Development and Diversity and The Cornell Interactive Theatre Ensemble (CITE) offer a workshop focused on establishing an effective search and addressing issues such as unconscious bias in active recruitment.

Activity Types: Workshops
Program Components: Institutional Systems:Personnel/Hiring
Target Audience: Tenured/Tenure-track Faculty, Institution Administration, College/University Staff
Point of Intervention: Institution

STEMcoding project
Chris Orban, Ohio State University-Main Campus
Groups like code.org have revolutionized computer science education for the elementary school and junior high levels. But for the most part the revolution has not yet reached high-school STEM courses like physics, math and chemistry. The STEMcoding project exists to re-imagine introductory STEM courses with computer science in mind. Many schools are unable to offer computer science, but they may have a physics, or chemistry or math teacher who could integrate coding into some part of their course if there was coding content that was well aligned with the learning objectives of that course.

Activity Types: Conferences, Teaching Circles/Learning Communities, Journal Clubs/Brown Bags , Webinars, Workshops
Program Components: Supporting Students:Mentoring Program, Professional Development:Student Assessment, Institutional Systems:Interdepartmental Collaboration, Supporting Students:Undergraduate Research, Outreach:In-Service Teacher Training, Outreach to K12 Teachers and Students, Informal Education
Target Audience: K12 Students, First-year College Students, In-Service K12 Teachers
Institution Type: Doctorate-granting Universities:Highest Research Activity

Health Sciences and Technology Academy (HSTA)
Travis York, APLU
The Health Sciences & Technology Academy increases the number of African American and other underrepresented students in West Virginia who pursue degrees in health sciences and science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors, thereby increasing the number of health practitioners and advocates in the medically undeserved communities of West Virginia. HSTA helps West Virginia high school students succeed in health care and other STEM-based undergraduate and graduate degree programs. We marshal the efforts of hundreds of mentors―teachers, community members, and higher-education faculty, staff, and students―to create a framework that supports children facing social and financial challenges in obtaining a diploma and furthering their education.

Activity Types: Conferences, Workshops
Program Components: Supporting Students:Professional Preparation, Mentoring Program, Bootcamp, Student Engagement, Professional Development:Pedagogical Training, Supporting Students:Internships
Target Audience: K12 Students

Building the capacitiy for a robust STEM Teacher Preparation Program
Katherine Chen, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
The Teacher Preparation Program (TPP) in the STEM Education Center at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) is a distinctive program where WPI undergraduates earning a bachelor's degree in science, mathematics, or engineering can also obtain an initial teaching license in the state of Massachusetts, all within four years at the university. We are conducting design-based research on our teacher preparation program and local school system, and developing the infrastructure for our teacher candidates to be effective STEM teachers in high-need schools.

Program Components: Supporting Students:Cohort Program, Professional Preparation
Target Audience: Pre-Service K12 Teachers, Undergraduate Majors

Water Network for Team STEM (WaNTS)
Travis York, APLU
Pacific Resources for Education and Learning (PREL), working with multiple partner agencies in the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) and in Pohnpei (PNI) State of the Federated States of Micronesia, two rural and remote jurisdictions of the U.S.-Affiliated Pacific Islands (USAPI), proposes a two-year Design and Development Launch Pilot, Water Network for Team STEM, (WaNTS). WaNTS will nurture greater participation of Indigenous Pacific Islanders in STEM fields, facilitated by a collective impact model that employs the locally meaningful topic of clean drinking water as a vehicle for both K–12 engagement and broader community organization and action. Intergenerational and cross-jurisdiction networking will meld Western STEM with local ecological knowledge, empowering Inclusive Informal Science Learning Teams (IISLTs), Advisory Groups, and multiple, local, school-based Water Quality Management Teams (WQMTs), impacting thousands of residents. A repository of locally applicable educational materials will be created, maintained, and disseminated.

Activity Types: Conferences, Workshops
Program Components: Supporting Students:Learning Communities
Target Audience: Undergraduate Majors, Transfer Students, First Generation College Students, First-year College Students, Undergraduate Non-Majors, K12 Students, Underrepresented Minority Students
Point of Intervention: Multiple Institutions

NM EPSCoR Early Career Leadership Workshop
Travis York, APLU
The New Mexico EPSCoR Post Doc Leadership Workshop is an innovative 3-day intensive, residential program designed to enhance the professional skills of post-doctoral scholars in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. The workshop uses interactive approaches to develop leadership skills that contribute to post doc career development and success.

Activity Types: Workshops
Program Components: Professional Development:Diversity/Inclusion, Supporting Students:Mentoring Program, Professional Preparation, Professional Development:Advising and Mentoring
Target Audience: Graduate Students, Post-doctoral Fellows, Non-tenure Track Faculty, Tenured/Tenure-track Faculty
Point of Intervention: Institution