Science and Mathematics Education Commons^™

Community In The Online Science Classroom, Emily Faulconer

Publications

As online course offerings rise, it is important to design and facilitate courses to promote community so students feel connected to each other and the instructor and feel a sense of belonging as a scientist. Online discussions are a common feature for building and nurturing community and combating isolation. Discussions stimulate active learning, a strategy to promote participation in knowledge construction. This sense of community and science identity is important for both persistence and performance. I will share efforts to promote community while reducing extraneous cognitive load through discussion design and targeted instructor professional development. I will share data on …

Finding Community And Overcoming Barriers: Experiences Of Queer And Transgender Postsecondary Students In Mathematics And Other Stem Fields, Elizabeth Kersey, Matthew Voigt

Publications

Although there is little research on the experiences of queer and/or transgender postsecondary students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, we can infer from current literature that these subjects may be less welcoming than the humanities and social sciences. We conducted two studies to investigate this possibility: (1) a narrative inquiry study with postsecondary transgender students and (2) a grounded theory narrative study with undergraduate queer students. Transgender students who had transitioned indicated that they were subjected to lower expectations when presenting as female, but transgender women experienced this change as positive, since their treatment by others was …

We Don’T Have To Lose Stem Students To Business, Naomi L. B. Wernick, Fred D. Ledley

Natural & Applied Sciences Faculty Publications

Most undergraduate students who leave STEM majors before graduation choose careers in business. This article argues that better integrating business opportunities and context into the STEM curriculum could advance STEM learning, motivate students to remain in STEM as majors, and cultivate a constructive relationship between business, science, and society.

Reacting To The Past Course Outline And Materials, Arturo Huipe

Q2S Enhancing Pedagogy

Reacting to the past pedagogy. Including course outline and example character role sheet. Examination of a critical change in the natural sciences through the study of the context and impact of a specific idea, innovation or discovery. Using the Reacting to the Past approach, students play complex role-playing games informed by important historical sources (specific themes and topics may vary). Students will develop skills in information literacy, collaboration, speaking, and writing as they pursue the objectives of their assigned role by convincing classmates of their views. Following the game, debriefing will facilitate deeper understandings of the focus concepts and provide …

Stem Opportunities - High School 2019, Huey-Xian Kelly Wong, Madeleine Rauhauser, Annie Morgan Nelson

Honors Expanded Learning Clubs

This publication details the lesson plan for the “Opportunities in STEM” club for the summer of 2019. This club began out of a desire to educate high school students about the opportunities and careers available in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics fields. Often, students feel that the prospect of entering a STEM field is daunting and out of their grasp. What it means to be a scientist is often unclear, and students never consider opportunities out of the fear of the unknown, particularly when science is associated with complexity and difficulty. This lesson plan integrates experiments with a wealth …

Law School News: Roger Williams University Announces 11th President 02-13-2019, Ed Fitzpatrick

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Infographic: Stem And Medical Careers Related To Sports, Melanie Canfield, Leroy Long Iii

Publications

This infographic includes science, technology, engineering, math and medical (STEMM) careers related to sports. The targeted audience for the infographic is college counselors, professors, coaches and student-athletes who pursue STEMM degrees while playing a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) sport. The infographic may also be useful to K-12 students, parents, teachers and coaches. A job description, average salary, and undergraduate major are listed for a variety of careers such as data scientist, video game designer, sports engineer, sports economist, physical therapist, and mental health clinician.

The Impact Of Mentoring On Life Science Undergraduate Mentors, Kari Nelson

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Universities are increasingly encouraging their undergraduates to become mentors to others, yet relatively little research has been done to empirically understand the impact of this work on the mentors themselves. Therefore, the overall goals of this work were: (1) To evaluate the types of studies that have been conducted on the impacts of serving as an undergraduate mentor; (2) To examine the methodological rigor of recent studies and make recommendations for improvement; and (3) To asses if serving as an undergraduate mentor impacted the critical thinking of the mentors, using a valid and reliable instrument, the California Critical Thinking Skills …

Lost In Translation: How The Way We Talk About Math And Science Isn't Helping Anyone, Jonathan Flynn

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

All podcast episodes are found at the bottom of the page under Additional Files.

"Lost in Translation" is a podcast that discusses the problems with our society's attitude towards science, technology, engineering and mathematics and we can address them.

This podcast has three episodes which are listed in Additional Files, along with the bibliography.

Anatomy Of Stem Teaching In North American Universities, Paul J. Wendel, Joan M. Esson, Kathryn M. Plank, Anna M. Young

Education Faculty Scholarship & Creative Works

A large body of evidence demonstrates that strategies that promote student interactions and cognitively engage students with content lead to gains in learning and attitudinal outcomes for students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses. Many educational and governmental bodies have called for and supported adoption of these student centered strategies throughout the undergraduate STEM curriculum.

A How-To Guide On Bringing Undergraduate Research To Community And Technical Colleges, Angelo Kolokithas, Olga Calderón

Publications and Research

Increasing the interest and participation of students in STEM is a priority for colleges, universities, and the nation as a whole. As new generations of students embark in training and in learning novel technologies to deal with the challenges of emerging infectious diseases, crop and food production, and the development of new and better sustainable alternatives in the face of a changing environment on our planet, we must also evolve our approach to teaching and learning. One strategy that may be found helpful as students face the challenges ahead is to instill inquiry and problem-solving skills as part of their …

Infographic: Be An Engineer, Leroy L. Long Iii, William Wanyagah

Publications

Infographic on how to become an engineer.

Infographic: Institutional Barriers To Black And Latino Male Collegians’ Success In Engineering And Related Stem Fields, Leroy L. Long Iii, William Wanyagah

Publications

Infographic was created to support the article Institutional Barriers to Black and Latino Male Collegian's Success in Engineering and Related Stem Fields, which can be read here:

Examining The Relationships Between Gender Role Congruity, Identity, And The Choice To Persist For Women In Undergraduate Physics Majors, Bronwen Bares Pelaez

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Persistent gender disparity limits the available contributors to advancing some science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. While higher education can be an influential time-point for ensuring adequate participation, many physics programs across the U.S. have few women in classroom or lab settings. Prior research indicates that these women face considerable barriers. For university students, faculty, and administration to appropriately address these issues, it is important to understand the experiences of women as they navigate male-dominated STEM fields.

This explanatory sequential mixed methods study explored undergraduate female physics majors’ experiences with their male-dominated academic and research spaces in the U.S. …

A Multiple Case Narrative Examining The Experiences Of Alumni Of A Minority Research And Training Program, Gretchen Burton

Faculty Publications

The implementation of minority research and training (MRT) programs at the post secondary level has risen to close the educational achievement gap and build undergraduate pathways to generate a highly skilled and diverse STEM pool. Although the numbers of advanced science related degrees have slowly increased over the past decade, partially due to the utilization of MRT programs, this increase has not been adequate to establish an impactful representation in either academic or industry research careers. Numerous studies identify various support interventions influencing positive outcomes among MRT participants achieving graduate degrees. However, majority of the studies utilize quantitative or a …

Change At The Core: A Collaborative Model For Undergraduate Stem Education Reform, Emily Borda, Edward Geary, Emily Schumacher

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Residency

Here we describe two projects that describe and study the effects of Change at the Core (C-Core), a professional development program for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) faculty and an institutional reform project for three interlinked institutions. One takes a classroom view, describing initial implementation of student-centered teaching in C-Core participants’ classrooms, and the other takes an institutional view, describing affordances and constraints of the Western Washington University (WWU), Whatcom Community College (WCC), and Skagit Valley College (SVC) collaboration.

Traversing Stem: Creating Pathways For Social Justice In The United States, Remy Dou

Department of Teaching and Learning

The system that once motivated Americans to pursue science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) careers now presents obstacles to racial and ethnic minorities, women, and the poor. This paper highlights both the advantages and hindrances inherent in STEM professions while advocating for improved access to these pathways.

Successful Female Students In Undergraduate Computer Science And Computer Engineering: Motivation, Self-Regulation, And Qualitative Characteristics, Melissa Patterson Hazley

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Computer Science (CS) and Computer Engineering (CE) fields typically have not been successful at recruiting or retaining women students. Research indicates several reasons for this shortage but mainly from three perspectives: social issues, exposure/prior knowledge and curriculum issues in K-12 settings. This mixed-methods research addresses a gap in the literature by investigating the motivation and self-regulation behaviors of successful female students who are studying computer science and computer engineering. The findings in phase one of this study indicated that learning and performance approach goals predicted adaptive strategic self-regulation behaviors including strategy use, knowledge building and engagement. Learning avoidance goals predicted …

Building Support For Faculty Women Of Color In Stem, Loretta A. Moore, Deidre L. Wheaton, Evelyn J. Leggette, Angela Mae Kupenda

Journal Articles

Given the national climate, higher education must continue to serve a vital role for our future, just as it has in our past. For historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and other minority-serving institutions, their mission-driven role is even more urgent. Communities of color depend on these institutions to be gateways for access to jobs with higher incomes for graduates in growing fields such as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). Hence, it is critical for these faculty women of color in STEM to have environments and networks that will help them to succeed.

Undergraduate Teaching Assistant Impact On Student Academic Achievement., Stephanie B. Philipp, Thomas R. Tretter, Christine V. Rich

Faculty Scholarship

This study evaluated the impact that trained and supported undergraduate teaching assistants (UTAs) may have had on the academic achievement of students in the first semester of an introductory chemistry course for science and engineering majors. Framed by the concepts of Lave and Wenger’s Community of Practice and Wheeler, Martin and Suls’ Proxy Model of Social Comparison , the study used an untreated control group with dependent post-test only design. Covariates related to student academic achievement and contextual variables were also collected and used to build models for the final exam core outcome variable. Hierarchical linear models indicated that having …

Work Integrated Learning In Stem In Australian Universities: Final Report: Submitted To The Office Of The Chief Scientist, Daniel Edwards, Kate Perkins, Jacob Pearce, Jennifer Hong

Higher education research

The Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) undertook this study for the Office of the Chief Scientist (OCS). It explores the practice and application of Work Integrated Learning (WIL) in STEM, with a particular focus on natural and physical sciences, information technology, and agriculture departments in Australian universities. The project involved a detailed ‘stocktake’ of WIL in practice in these disciplines, with collection of information by interview, survey instruments, consultation with stakeholders and literature reviews. Every university in Australia was visited as part of this project, with interviews and consultation sessions gathering insight from more than 120 academics and support …

Making Their Own Way: The Experiences Of Gay Male Students In Stem Fields, Adam R. Smith

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis focuses on the experiences of gay male undergraduate students in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. These fields are often thought to be very masculine or hyper-genderized, which could conflict with the dominant culture’s perception of a gay student’s identity. It follows, then, that a hypergenderized environment could have negative effects on those who do not identify strongly with the hegemonic masculine identity that may be present in the classroom.

Using phenomenological principles, students were asked to participate in a series of three interviews, which included two reflective exercises designed to explore their experiences in and …

Traditional Elders In Post-Secondary Stem Education, Maria Pontes Ferreira, Betty Mckenna, Fidji Gendron

Nutrition and Food Science Faculty Research Publications

Native/Aboriginal students are underrepresented in Western science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), due in part to perceived cultural irrelevance. Yet many Native people continue to engage in Indigenous science, such as through traditional medicine and food systems. Recently it was shown that Aboriginal university students are significant users of natural health products (NHP) and learn about NHP from Elders. Thus, in post-secondary educational settings, the presence of Elders may positively impact Native students' interest in science-related topics. At the First Nations University of Canada, partnering of STEM-trained faculty with Elders occurs in community-based research and education endeavours. This paper highlights …

Is There A Difference In Motivation And Mathematics Self-Efficacy Among Online Mathematics Instructional Video Viewers, Charles Edgar Hampton

Instructional Technology Education Specialist Research Papers

Researching US K-12 STEM proficiency reveals severe and widespread consequences, for post-secondary and vocational environments. Sources in both environments cite lack of skills and competency as the major cause of increasing remedial mathematics enrollment and growing unemployment. One reasonable and simple method of better preparing students is the viewing online mathematics instructional videos. Online mathematics instructional videos are widely available, efficacious, and free to access via KhanAcademy.org and YouTube’s Education portal. Mobile, personal, and desktop technology device ownership and free WIFI or reduced price Internet service is increasing dramatically each year, so means of access are not a problem. This …