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.
You can add your own program to the database by completing the database submission form.
Activity Types
Program Components
Target Audience
- College/University Staff 11 matches
- English Language Learners 4 matches
- First Generation College Students 18 matches
- First-year College Students 17 matches
- Graduate Students 10 matches
- In-Service K12 Teachers 5 matches
- Institution Administration 15 matches
- K12 Students 6 matches
- Non-tenure Track Faculty 16 matches
- Post-doctoral Fellows 4 matches
- Pre-Service K12 Teachers 5 matches
- Teaching/Learning Assistants 6 matches
- Tenured/Tenure-track Faculty 23 matches
- Transfer Students 9 matches
- Undergraduate Majors 24 matches
- Undergraduate Non-Majors 15 matches
- Underrepresented Minority Students 20 matches
Point of Intervention
Results 1 - 10 of 42 matches
InSciTE
Wiline Pangle, Central Michigan University
Our mission is to create an equitable student-driven environment for undergraduate students to develop skills on interdisciplinary communication, collaboration and real-world problem solving to become culturally competent and effective leaders.
Program Components: Professional Development:Advising and Mentoring, Accessibility, Diversity/Inclusion, Pedagogical Training, Curriculum Development, Student Assessment, Course Evaluation, Cultural Competency, Institutional Systems:Interdepartmental Collaboration, Supporting Students:Mentoring Program, Student Engagement, Learning Communities, Undergraduate Research, Quantitative Skills, Academic Support, Scholarships, Grants, Workstudy, Professional Preparation, Cohort Program, Clubs/Social Activities, Outreach:Presentations/Talks, Student Recruiting
Target Audience: Underrepresented Minority Students, English Language Learners, College/University Staff, Non-tenure Track Faculty, Tenured/Tenure-track Faculty, Institution Administration, First-year College Students, Undergraduate Majors, Transfer Students, First Generation College Students
Point of Intervention: College/School
Institution Type: Doctorate-granting Universities:Moderate Research Activity
Purpose + Reach = Individuals Measured for Excellence (PRIME) STEM Project
Travis York, APLU
PRIME STEM/Student Support Services is a federally-funded TRiO program (U.S. Department of Education). The program supports college students pursuing STEM majors (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) who are first-generation, demonstrate a financial need, and/or have a documented disability.
Program Components: Supporting Students:Mentoring Program, Learning Communities, Academic Support
Target Audience: Underrepresented Minority Students, Undergraduate Non-Majors, Undergraduate Majors, First Generation College Students
Point of Intervention: Major/Department
CCHF Chemistry Summer Undergraduate Research Program (CSURP)
Travis York, APLU
CSURP is a program for undergraduate students, majoring in chemistry or chemical engineering, interested in conducting supervised summer research. The program is supported by the Center for Selective C-H Functionalization (CCHF), which is a network of 23 academic and industrial research laboratories at 15 partner institutions throughout the country. The CCHF is one of eight National Science Foundation (NSF) funded Centers for Chemical Innovation.
Target Audience: Underrepresented Minority Students, Undergraduate Majors, First Generation College Students
Point of Intervention: Major/Department
Engineering Career Awareness Program (ECAP)
Travis York, APLU
Target Audience: K12 Students, Underrepresented Minority Students, First-year College Students, Undergraduate Non-Majors, First Generation College Students
Point of Intervention: College/School
Institution Type: Doctorate-granting Universities:Highest Research Activity
LAUNCH: Undergraduate Research
Travis York, APLU
LAUNCH is an acronym that stands for Learning Communities (L), Academic Excellence (A), Undergraduate Research (U), National Fellowships (N), Capstones (C), and Honors (H). LAUNCH is a unit of Undergraduate Studies housed in Academic Affairs under the Provost at Texas A&M University. LAUNCH: UGR promotes, coordinates, creates, and assesses undergraduate programs involving creative scholarship, inquiry, and research in all academic disciplines at Texas A&M. The programs serves as an introduction for first generation, low income, and/or under-represented students in STEM research through first year research teams, summer research programs, research presentations, and research and graduate program informationals.
Target Audience: Underrepresented Minority Students, Non-tenure Track Faculty, Tenured/Tenure-track Faculty, First-year College Students, Undergraduate Non-Majors, Undergraduate Majors, Transfer Students, Graduate Students, First Generation College Students
Point of Intervention: Major/Department
LAUNCH: Learning Communities
Travis York, APLU
Learning communities (LCs) are opportunities for students to actively participate in their education. Learning communities connect students with others of similar interests or backgrounds, enrich the learning process and promote greater student success. Creating a rich learning environment, learning communities emphasize relationships and community building among students, faculty and staff. LCs usually feature small group interaction, common intellectual experiences, and mentorship from peers and/or faculty. Students gain insight into the context for course material, develop a social network and support, are exposed to new experiences and develop their critical thinking skills.
Program Components: Supporting Students:Mentoring Program, Learning Communities, Academic Support
Target Audience: Underrepresented Minority Students, First-year College Students, Undergraduate Non-Majors, Undergraduate Majors, First Generation College Students
Point of Intervention: Institution
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.
Program Components: Supporting Students:Learning Communities
Target Audience: K12 Students, Underrepresented Minority Students, First-year College Students, Undergraduate Non-Majors, Undergraduate Majors, Transfer Students, First Generation College Students
Point of Intervention: Multiple Institutions
Communities of practice for engaging faculty in STEM course reform
Laura Hahn, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
At large research-intensive universities, teaching STEM at scale has posed instructional challenges to faculty who are unaccustomed to addressing pedagogy in a collective, sustainable manner. At our institution, through strategic implementation of communities of practice, we are beginning to integrate the qualities of a strong, collaborative research culture into the context of teaching.
Program Components: Professional Development:Pedagogical Training, Curriculum Development, Institutional Systems:Strategic Planning, Interdepartmental Collaboration, Supporting Students:Student Engagement, Undergraduate Research
Target Audience: College/University Staff, Non-tenure Track Faculty, Tenured/Tenure-track Faculty, Institution Administration, Undergraduate Majors
Point of Intervention: College/School
Institution Type: Doctorate-granting Universities:Highest Research Activity
Departmental Action Teams (DATs)
Daniel Reinholz, San Diego State University
SITAR aims to improve undergraduate STEM education by professionalizing educational practice through measurement, assessment, and cultural change. We focus on department-wide change to achieve more coherent, long lasting reforms. Our project uses a three-layer approach: (1) We work with groups of faculty through Departmental Action Teams (DATs) to create sustainable mechanisms to address educational issues in an ongoing fashion (bottom up); (2) We apply targeted approaches to individual departments to stimulate cultural change (middle out); and (3) We work with the administration and faculty senate to promote and incentivize the use of evidence-based teaching practices (top down). We support these three layers with infrastructure provided by the AAU and our collaborations with our Office of Informational Technology (OIT) to develop and import technology for better utilizing already existing institutional student data.
Program Components: Professional Development:Pedagogical Training, Curriculum Development, Student Assessment
Target Audience: College/University Staff, Non-tenure Track Faculty, Tenured/Tenure-track Faculty, Institution Administration, First-year College Students, Undergraduate Non-Majors, Undergraduate Majors
Point of Intervention: Major/Department
Institution Type: Doctorate-granting Universities:Highest Research Activity
UA-AAU STEM Collaborative Learning Spaces Project
Lisa Elfring, University of Arizona
The Collaborative Learning Spaces Project (CLSP), an extension of the UA AAU Undergraduate STEM Education Project, is a university-wide collaborative effort at the University of Arizona to develop classroom environments that are more suitable for active learning pedagogies than traditional lecture halls. Instructors and their teaching teams who are using these rooms receive training and participate in faculty learning communities (FLCs) to explore best practices and innovative ideas for use of these spaces.
Program Components: Professional Development:Accessibility, Diversity/Inclusion, Pedagogical Training, Student Assessment, Course Evaluation, Institutional Systems:Evaluating Teaching, Interdepartmental Collaboration, Physical Infrastructure, Supporting Students:Student Engagement
Target Audience: Underrepresented Minority Students, English Language Learners, Pre-Service K12 Teachers, College/University Staff, Non-tenure Track Faculty, Tenured/Tenure-track Faculty, Institution Administration, First-year College Students, Undergraduate Non-Majors, Undergraduate Majors, Transfer Students, Teaching/Learning Assistants, Graduate Students, First Generation College Students
Point of Intervention: Institution
Institution Type: Doctorate-granting Universities:Highest Research Activity

