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Articles 1 - 13 of 13
Full-Text Articles in Science and Mathematics Education
Stem Ready: Inspiring And Preparing Undergraduate Students For Successful Volunteerism In After-School Stem Programming With Marginalized Youth, Bailey N. Wagner
Stem Ready: Inspiring And Preparing Undergraduate Students For Successful Volunteerism In After-School Stem Programming With Marginalized Youth, Bailey N. Wagner
Community Engagement Student Work
The activities in which children and youth engage while outside of school hours are critical to their development, highlighting the need for quality afterschool programs that engage students – regardless of gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or minority classification. STEM Ready set out to study the effectiveness of an experiential education pedagogy approach in the design of a professional workshop for undergraduate volunteers who work directly with these marginalized populations in afterschool programs. This project hosted a training that gave the opportunity for afterschool volunteers to come together to be trained on STEM curriculum that has been developed in collaboration with …
Informal Learning: How Care Providers Can Engage In Learning Outside Of The Classroom, Christina Lannon
Informal Learning: How Care Providers Can Engage In Learning Outside Of The Classroom, Christina Lannon
Honors Senior Capstone Projects
Informal learning is learning that happens spontaneously with no explicit instruction taking place (Latchem, 2014). The term informal learning was developed in 1950 by Malcolm Knowles in his work Informal Adult Education (as cited in Cofer, 2000) and many others have researched best practices for informal learning involving children (Latchem, 2014; Song et al., 2017). In many cases, it is the responsibility of the adult to initiate informal learning experiences by providing quality explanations for the many questions that children ask and engaging in everyday conversation with children. Much of the research that has been done exploring informal learning has …
Stem Center For Student Retention And Success: A Proposal, Madhu Dhar Ph.D
Stem Center For Student Retention And Success: A Proposal, Madhu Dhar Ph.D
Higher Education Student Work
The STEM pipeline, a commonly used analogy (Kuh, 2006; Tierney, 2000), has been shrinking. Furthermore, degree attainment for women and underrepresented minority students in STEM are even lower than for undergraduates as a-whole (National Science Foundation, 2007). With low numbers of students enrolling in STEM fields and even smaller numbers of women and minorities in the STEM pipeline, colleges and universities need to pay particular-attention to retaining the students they have. This capstone proposes a STEM Center that provides an infrastructural support for undergraduate students in the School of Science and Engineering at Merrimack College. The Center will consolidate programs …
Computer Science Unit, Megan Bouchard
Computer Science Unit, Megan Bouchard
Honors Senior Capstone Projects
A collection of ten computer science lesson plans, aligned with Massachusetts Digital Literacy and Computer Science Standards, developed for an after school program.
Integrating Lecture And Laboratory In Health Sciences Courses Improves Student Satisfaction And Performance, Kevin E. Finn, Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Zi Yan
Integrating Lecture And Laboratory In Health Sciences Courses Improves Student Satisfaction And Performance, Kevin E. Finn, Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Zi Yan
Health Sciences Faculty Publications
Students often struggle in introductory health sciences courses; some students have difficulty in upper level classes. To address this, we converted three lecture/lab courses, traditional firstyear Anatomy and Physiology (A&P I), upper level Biomechanics, and upper level Microbiology to an integrated studio model. We used the Student Assessment of Learning Gains perceptual survey to assess student and instructor reactions to the change and analyzed rates of unsatisfactory grades and quiz performance. Reaction (220 students, 15 instructors) to the new model was highly positive, and performance improvement was seen. Student perceptions were consistent across courses and agreed closely with instructor perceptions. …
Active Science® Pilot Study: Promoting Physical Activity And Science Learning Among Children, Kevin E. Finn, Zi Yan, Edward Martin, Kyle Mcinnis
Active Science® Pilot Study: Promoting Physical Activity And Science Learning Among Children, Kevin E. Finn, Zi Yan, Edward Martin, Kyle Mcinnis
Health Sciences Faculty Publications
Background: Afterschool programs (ASPs) have been identified as ideal settings where children can accumulate a significant portion of their total daily physical activity (PA). The purpose of the current study was to assess the effectiveness of the Active Science program in promoting PA and science learning in different site locations across the U.S. Methods: Participants were 72 children (35 females, mean age = 9.2 years, standard deviation [SD] = 0.9) from five YMCA afterschool childcare sites located in five states. The 6-week Active Science program was implemented twice/week for 60 min at a site. The participants completed 30 min of …
Social Justice And Writing In A Math Classroom, Jesica Chaya
Social Justice And Writing In A Math Classroom, Jesica Chaya
Honors Senior Capstone Projects
By intertwining new math concepts with important and relevant social issues, teachers can empower students to recognize the applicable nature of math to problems that their generation will be dealing with for years to come. In doing this, they can also change students’ perceptions of what succeeding in a math class looks like and address a rising necessity for writing across the curriculum by connecting these social justice based plans with writing assignments that encourage and reinforce vocabulary and a deep understanding of the material.
Impact Of The Siena College Tech Valley Scholars Program On Student Outcomes, Larry Medsker, Lee Allard, Lucas J. Tucker, Jodi L. O’Donnell, Rachel Sterne-Marr, Jon Bannon, Rose Finn, Allan T. Weatherwax
Impact Of The Siena College Tech Valley Scholars Program On Student Outcomes, Larry Medsker, Lee Allard, Lucas J. Tucker, Jodi L. O’Donnell, Rachel Sterne-Marr, Jon Bannon, Rose Finn, Allan T. Weatherwax
Physics Faculty Publications
The experimental group for this study included 38 students who entered the Tech Valley Scholars (TVS) program over the course of three academic years, from 2009-10 through 2011-12. Two groups of controls were used: a randomly selected sample of STEM students who matriculated in the same time frame; and a matched sample. The TVS students and controls were compared on two primary outcome variables: graduation (or retention to senior year), and final cumulative GPA. The major findings of this study are that (1) the TVS students had better outcomes than both the randomly selected comparison group and the matched control …
Study Of The Design Of A First Generation Community College Stem Learning Community, Susan M. St. Pierre
Study Of The Design Of A First Generation Community College Stem Learning Community, Susan M. St. Pierre
Higher Education Student Work
First generation students attending college have difficulties achieving academic success, engaging with their peers and persisting (Jehangir, 2010); are growing in number on college campuses; and are significantly underrepresented in STEM programs of study. This research examined the role that a STEM focused Learning Community (STEM LC) and student participation in Early College programs with STEM exposure have on first generation student achievement engagement and retention. The purpose of the project was to research and design a framework for a community college STEM LC for first generation students as a means to increase academic achievement and student retention for this …
Integrating Movement And Science To Promote Physical Activity And Academic Performance In Middle School Children, Kevin E. Finn, Kyle Mcinnis
Integrating Movement And Science To Promote Physical Activity And Academic Performance In Middle School Children, Kevin E. Finn, Kyle Mcinnis
Health Sciences Faculty Publications
Background: Recommendations from leading U.S. health agencies concerned with reducing childhood obesity call for increased physical activity during school and afterschool environments. Methods: We developed the Active Science curriculum, which is a variety of activity-based lessons (e.g., nature hike, dance class, walk at local park, treadmill at local YMCA) and incorporated them into traditional science classes and after school programs for middle school children in a low-income, ethnically diverse community. Following the activity experiments, students and teachers uploaded data from devices to an interactive website that provided inquiry-based exploratory learning of science content. Results: Physical activity results showed that the …
Learning Public Health Through Civic Issues, Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Learning Public Health Through Civic Issues, Kathleen Fitzpatrick
Health Sciences Faculty Publications
This course is organized around current challenging health issues, such as mandatory immunization, childhood obesity, health insurance, tobacco control, etc. Activities included issues-focused debates, lecture and video presentations, case study discussions, and guest speakers. Students completed fifteen hours of community-based service learning, many in the Lawrence Math-Science Partnership, an outreach program in which undergraduates work on after-school STEM enrichment activities with middle-school students. Several activities complemented the course issues, allowing college students to make connections between course theory and community needs, while engaging middle-school students in important public health concepts. The SENCER-SALG assessment (N=189/192 (98%) of enrolled students) indicated that …
Mathematics Placement Test: Helping Students Succeed, Norma Rueda, Carole Sokolowski
Mathematics Placement Test: Helping Students Succeed, Norma Rueda, Carole Sokolowski
Mathematics Faculty Publications
A study was conducted at Merrimack College in Massachusetts to compare the grades of students who took the recommended course as determined by their mathematics placement exam score and those who did not follow this recommendation. The goal was to decide whether the mathematics placement exam used at Merrimack College was effective in placing students in the appropriate mathematics class. During five years, first-year students who took a mathematics course in the fall semester were categorized into four groups: those who took the recommended course, those who took an easier course than recommended, those who took a course more difficult …
Photochemistry And Pinhole Photography: An Interdisciplinary Experiment, Angeliki A. Rigos, Kevin Salemme
Photochemistry And Pinhole Photography: An Interdisciplinary Experiment, Angeliki A. Rigos, Kevin Salemme
Visual & Performing Arts Faculty Publications
This interdisciplinary activity combines chemistry and art through the construction and use of a pinhole camera. We focused on the chemistry of the black and white photographic process as the science component of this activity. The reactions involved are good examples of photochemistry and multiphase chemical reactions, since the light sensitive materials (silver halides) are in the form of a gelatin emulsion of microscopic crystals.