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 21 - 30 of 41 matches

Enabling Faculty to Adopt Deliberative Democracy Pedagogy: a tool to broaden and engage
Gwen Shusterman, Portland State University
This project has been focused on catalyzing pedagogical innovation in introductory science courses. In particular, structures have been put in place to facilitate the implementation of the model of Deliberative Democracy Pedagogy (DDP). DDP is an active learning strategy, based on deliberative democratic models of citizen engagement in science policymaking. This integrative pedagogical approach, revises the delivery of conventional introductory science content around modules that engage students with current science policy controversies. Teaching teams of faculty and graduate students have attended summer pedagogical workshops, developed curricular modules, implemented the modules and participated in regular Communities of Practice meetings.

Activity Types: Teaching Circles/Learning Communities, Workshops
Program Components: Professional Development:Student Assessment, Curriculum Development, Pedagogical Training, Diversity/Inclusion, Institutional Systems:Incentive/Reward Systems, Interdepartmental Collaboration, Outreach:Outreach to K12 Teachers and Students, Supporting Students:Student Engagement, Outreach:Presentations/Talks, Supporting Students:Professional Preparation
Target Audience: Undergraduate Majors, First-year College Students, Tenured/Tenure-track Faculty, Transfer Students, Non-tenure Track Faculty, Teaching/Learning Assistants, Underrepresented Minority Students, First Generation College Students, Graduate Students
Point of Intervention: Course
Institution Type: Doctorate-granting Universities:Higher 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.

Activity Types: Teaching Circles/Learning Communities
Program Components: Professional Development:Curriculum Development, Pedagogical Training, Student Assessment
Target Audience: Institution Administration, First-year College Students, Undergraduate Majors, Undergraduate Non-Majors, Tenured/Tenure-track Faculty, Non-tenure Track Faculty, College/University Staff
Point of Intervention: Major/Department
Institution Type: Doctorate-granting Universities:Highest Research Activity

An Education Research Professional Learning Community for STEM Faculty
Louis Nadelson, Utah State University
The STEM Education Research Scholars Group (SERSG) is a faculty community of practice (FCP) focused on increasing knowledge and experience in STEM education research. The participants applied to be part of the group (eight scholars per cohort) which was facilitated by an expert educational researcher, and committed to engage in both individual and group STEM education research projects. At the end of the fourth year, I conducted an exploratory study of the program outcomes and influences by surveying the 31 program alumni.

Activity Types: Teaching Circles/Learning Communities
Program Components: Outreach:Public Outreach, Informal Education, Professional Development:Pedagogical Training, Student Assessment, Institutional Systems:Evaluating Teaching, Supporting Students:Professional Preparation, Academic Support
Target Audience: Tenured/Tenure-track Faculty
Institution Type: Doctorate-granting Universities:Higher Research Activity

UA-AAU STEM Collaborative Learning Spaces Project
Lisa Elfring, The 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.

Activity Types: Teaching Circles/Learning Communities, Workshops
Program Components: Professional Development:Diversity/Inclusion, Accessibility, Pedagogical Training, Institutional Systems:Evaluating Teaching, Supporting Students:Student Engagement, Institutional Systems:Physical Infrastructure, Interdepartmental Collaboration, Professional Development:Student Assessment, Course Evaluation
Target Audience: Institution Administration, Tenured/Tenure-track Faculty, Non-tenure Track Faculty, College/University Staff, First-year College Students, Undergraduate Majors, First Generation College Students, Graduate Students, Teaching/Learning Assistants, Transfer Students, Undergraduate Non-Majors, Pre-Service K12 Teachers, English Language Learners, Underrepresented Minority Students
Point of Intervention: Institution
Institution Type: Doctorate-granting Universities:Highest Research Activity

Institutional Impact of Scaling-up Course-Embedded Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs)
Judy Awong-Taylor, Georgia Gwinnett College
Georgia Gwinnett College was established in 2006 as a public liberal arts institution with a mission to provide open access to all high school graduates regardless of SAT scores. In 2011, The School of Science and Technology (SST) implemented a program for enhancing student engagement and learning in all STEM disciplines. GGC's Four-year Undergraduate Research and Creative Experience (4YrURCE) program is based upon a discipline-specific course-embedded research model which scaffolds multiple research and creative experiences for all STEM majors during all four years of matriculation. To date, 54 courses have been re-designed as CUREs and over 3,000 students (unduplicated count) are impacted annually. Longitudinal program-level assessment data includes student performance, student attitudinal, and faculty attitudinal data gathered over the past five years of the initiative.

Activity Types: Conferences, Workshops
Program Components: Professional Development:Course Evaluation, Student Assessment, Pedagogical Training, Diversity/Inclusion, Curriculum Development, Institutional Systems:Incentive/Reward Systems, Supporting Students:Undergraduate Research, Student Engagement, Tutoring, Institutional Systems:Evaluating Teaching, Interdepartmental Collaboration
Target Audience: Underrepresented Minority Students, Tenured/Tenure-track Faculty, Non-tenure Track Faculty, Institution Administration, College/University Staff, Undergraduate Non-Majors, First-year College Students, First Generation College Students, Undergraduate Majors
Point of Intervention: College/School
Institution Type: Baccalaureate Colleges

BreakThru: The Georgia STEM Accessibility Alliance (GSAA)
Nathan W. Moon, Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus
BreakThru is a five-year National Science Foundation (NSF) funded project to broaden the participation of students with disabilities in secondary and postsecondary STEM education.

Activity Types: Conferences, Workshops
Program Components: Professional Development:Accessibility, Advising and Mentoring, Diversity/Inclusion, Supporting Students:Professional Preparation, Mentoring Program, Professional Development:Cultural Competency
Target Audience: College/University Staff, Underrepresented Minority Students, Institution Administration, Undergraduate Majors, Graduate Students, First-year College Students, K12 Students
Point of Intervention: Multiple Institutions
Institution Type: Doctorate-granting Universities:Highest Research Activity

UG Major for the School of Molecular and Cellular Biology
Melissa Michael, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Development of a broad-based, undergraduate biology major that allowed students more freedom to design their own path through the biological content.

Program Components: Professional Development:Curriculum Development, Institutional Systems:Degree Program Development
Target Audience: Undergraduate Majors, Tenured/Tenure-track Faculty
Point of Intervention: College/School
Institution Type: Doctorate-granting Universities:Highest Research Activity

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

Windows on the Inquiry Classroom
Christopher Bauer, University of New Hampshire-Main Campus
The project is a comprehensive documentation of an inquiry-based course, a college-level interdisciplinary exploration of the nature of heat, temperature, and energy (Fire and Ice). The door to this classroom is open for observations at any time for teachers, teacher educators, professional developers, researchers, and science learners. The entire course is available at the University of New Hampshire Scholars Repository: https://scholars.unh.edu/bauer. All 27 class sessions are captured in 10-minute video segments from four angles, including instructor and student teams. All course documents are also available: daily agenda, student team instructions and work products, and hands-on activity procedures. There are behind-the-curtain stories as well: instructor previews and debriefing for each class, graduate interns reviewing every class, student focus groups, and videos about course design process.

Activity Types: Workshops, Teaching Circles/Learning Communities, Journal Clubs/Brown Bags
Program Components: Professional Development:Pedagogical Training, Course Evaluation, Supporting Students:Student Engagement, Professional Development:Student Assessment, Curriculum Development
Target Audience: Non-tenure Track Faculty, College/University Staff, Tenured/Tenure-track Faculty, Teaching/Learning Assistants, Post-doctoral Fellows, Graduate Students, Institution Administration, In-Service K12 Teachers, Pre-Service K12 Teachers
Point of Intervention: College/School
Institution Type: Doctorate-granting Universities:Highest Research Activity

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