Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Student Performance In Modern Physics In An Active, Partially-Flipped Classroom, Scott Yarbrough

Physics Dissertations

The effectiveness of the flipped classroom and hybrid-flipped (partially flipped, partially lecture-based) method of instruction has been extensively studied for high school and introductory undergraduate physics courses, and it has been shown to increase student understanding and performance. However, few studies have been done for upper-level undergraduate courses, and even fewer have been done for virtual courses. In Spring 2021 and Fall 2023, a fully virtual, hybrid-flipped Modern Physics course was taught, primarily to a class of primarily juniors and seniors, with some sophomores. All were STEM majors. The same course, with a similar enrolment and demographic of students, was …

Sociocultural Barriers For Female Participation In Stem: A Case Of Saudi Women In Cybersecurity, Alanoud Aljuaid, Xiang Michelle Liu

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

The participation of women in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) workforces is overwhelmingly low as compared to their male counterparts. The low uptake of cybersecurity careers has been documented in the previous studies conducted in the contexts of the West and Eastern worlds. However, most of the past studies mainly covered the Western world leaving more knowledge gaps in the context of Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia. Thus, to fill the existing knowledge gaps, the current study focused on women in Saudi Arabia. The aim of the study was to investigate the factors behind the underrepresentation of …

Reflective Freewriting As A Strategy To Improve Pre-Service Teacher’S Physics Content Knowledge And Overall Attitude Toward Physics And Physics Teaching, Kali Ann Shoaf-Laughlin

MSU Graduate Theses

A pilot study conducted in the pre-service teacher (PST) physics classroom at Missouri State University sought to validate a tool for learning. A writing treatment, in which students were asked to participate in reflective freewriting exercises over the course of the semester was administered to one lab group. The Physics Attitude Scale was used to determine whether a positive impact was made on pre-service teacher attitudes about physics and teaching physics. Classroom exams and lab reports were used to determine whether or not aptitude was affected. This action research study used qualitative data to assess content knowledge and overall shift …

Science, Technology, Engineering, And Mathematics (Stem) Project-Based Learning (Pbl) Education: A New Mexico Case Study For Equity And Inclusion, Kimberly A. Scheerer

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs

This research addresses how student participation in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) project-based learning (PBL) education activities encourages underrepresented minority student achievement in STEM career field trajectories. Seven New Mexico high school counselors and 12 STEM organization personnel were interviewed during this study. Their responses represent the nuanced professional voices where New Mexico public education intersects with STEM student interest and cultural influence.

For students, STEM PBL can foster deep integration across educational disciplines and enhance STEM career trajectory interest and readiness. STEM education converged with PBL methodologies has the ability to leverage community support while broadening student networks. …

Using Magic To Teach Computer Programming, Dale F. Reed, Ronald I. Greenberg

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Magic can be used in project-based instruction to motivate students and provide a meaningful context for learning computer programming. This work describes several magic programs of the “Choose a Number” and “Pick a Card” varieties, making connections to underlying computing concepts.

Magic tricks presented as demonstrations and programming assignments elicit wonder and captivate students’ attention, so that students want to understand and replicate the work to show it to friends and family members. Capturing student interest and curiosity motivates them to learn the underlying programming concepts.

Two “Choose a Number” programs are shown where the computer is able to identify …

Maine Epscor, Vol. 1, Issue 1, Maine Epscor, University Of Maine, Kody Varahramyan, Shane Moeykens, Laurie Bragg, Daniel Timmermann, Jami Downing, Stefania Irene Marthakis, Christian Spindler, Bhavana Scalia-Bruce, Marcella Silver, Jennifer Smith-Mayo, Attis Bielecki, Grayson Huston, Markus Fredrich, Kristina Cammen

General University of Maine Publications

The University of Maine recently gained Carnegie R1 status, a level of recognition that speaks to the quality and scale of research happening at Maine’s land grant, sea grant, and space grant institution, and across the state as a whole. Research institutes, centers and labs established because of NSF EPSCoR RII Track-1 grants have created a significant and lasting impact in Maine. These entities include the Advanced Structures and Composites Center, Frontier Institute for Research in Sensor Technologies, Forest Bioproducts Research Institute, and Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions, which have generated over 500 million dollars in new R&D funding for …

Final Project Report Nsf Award 1744490: Nsf Includes Ddlp: Leadership And Isteam For Females In Elementary School (Life): An Integrated Approach To Increase The Number Of Women Pursuing Careers In Stem, Bruce G. Bukiet, James Lipuma, Nancy Steffen-Fluhr

STEM for Success Resources

Disclaimer

This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.

The LiFE project created and studied a comprehensive program bringing together iSTEAM, holistic student growth, modern technologies, and other supports to engage girls in STEM experiences through a collective impact approach.

LiFE supported STEAM clubs with role models and utilized research-based best …

The Bioinformatics Virtual Coordination Network: An Open-Source And Interactive Learning Environment, Benjamin J. Tully, Joy Buongiorno, Ashley B. Cohen, Jacob A. Cram, Arkadiy I. Garber, Sarah K. Hu, Arianna I. Krinos, Philip T. Leftwich, Alexis J. Marshall, Ella T. Sieradzki, Daan R. Speth, Elizabeth A. Suter, Christopher B. Trivedi, Luis E. Valentin-Alvarado, Jake L. Weissman, Bvcn Instructor Consortium

Faculty Works: Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Studies

Lockdowns and “stay-at-home” orders, starting in March 2020, shuttered bench and field dependent research across the world as a consequence of the global COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic continues to have an impact on research progress and career development, especially for graduate students and early career researchers, as strict social distance limitations stifle ongoing research and impede in-person educational programs. The goal of the Bioinformatics Virtual Coordination Network (BVCN) was to reduce some of these impacts by helping research biologists learn new skills and initiate computational projects as alternative ways to carry out their research. The BVCN was founded in April …

Impact Of User Traversal On Performance Of Stem Learners In Immersive Virtual Environments, Eric W. Nersesian

Dissertations

The emerging technologies of augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) may have vast implications to societal communication and representation of information. AR/VR computer interfaces are unique in that they may be placed spatially around the user in three-dimensional (3D) space; this affords new methods of both presentation and user interaction with the target information.

This may be especially impactful in the education of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professionals. Prior research has shown that simulations and visualizations improve the performance of STEM learners compared to live instruction and textbook reading. Yet, research into AR/VR as a learning environment for widespread …

For People And Planet: Teachers’ Evaluation Of An Educational Mobile Game And Resource Pack, Ma. Mercedes T. Rodrigo, Johanna Marion R. Torres, Janina Carla M. Castro, Abigail Marie T. Favis, Ingrid Yvonne Herras, Francesco U. Amante, Hakeem Jimenez, Juan Carlo F. Mallari, Kevin Arnel C. Mora, Walfrido David A. Diy, Jaclyn Ting Ting M. Lim, Ma. Assunta C. Cuyegkeng

Department of Information Systems & Computer Science Faculty Publications

For People and Planet: An SDG Adventure refers to a freely available Android-based narrative adventure game and teacher resource pack that helps learners see the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in their day-to-day lives. In this paper, we describe the results of an evaluation of both the game and the resource pack by eight (8) middle school teachers. After playing the game and reading the resource pack, teachers gave their feedback about what they liked best and least about the materials, how they could use these resources for their classes, and how these resources could be improved further. Overall, …

Stem Education In College: An Analysis Of Stakeholders’ Recent Challenges And Potential Solutions, Santanu De, Georgina Arguello

FDLA Journal

A vast majority of academic disciplines and curricula in the college center around Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), which are critical to developing the skills necessary for a global workforce. Rapid changes in pedagogical setups, educational modes, and advances in instructional technology entail diverse challenges for key stakeholders (i.e. students, faculty, and the organizations). This paper highlights the most relevant challenges and potential solutions in STEM higher education at the college level, reported in the last decade. The holistic analysis combining the three stakeholders’ perspectives would help elucidate significant contemporary aspects impacting the fields. The goal is to further …

Variability In The Effectiveness Of Psychological Interventions Based On Machine Learning In Stem Education, Mohammad Hasan, Bilal Khan

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

This manuscript presents a framework to investigate the variability in the effectiveness of psychological interventions supported by Machine Learning (ML) based early-warning systems (EWS) in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. It emphasizes the importance of investigating the resulting variability and suggests that effective EWS cannot be designed without a deeper understanding of the variability. The framework uses an ML-based model to predict students’ academic performance early in the semester for a Sophomore-level Computer Science course at a public university in the United States. The students were given psychological interventions by sending their end-of-term performance forecast thrice during the semester. …

Full Issue

Journal of Mathematics and Science: Collaborative Explorations

No abstract provided.

Becoming Women Engineers: Dismantled Notions And Distorted Perspectives, Lisa Zagumny, Holly Garrett Anthony, Sally J. Pardue

Journal of Multicultural Affairs

In an investigation of (non-international) undergraduate students’ experiences with their engineering major, we interviewed 10 young women asking questions about their interactions with instructors, academic successes/struggles, and any challenges they felt they had faced as women/girls in engineering. Initial findings echoed those in previous research serving to affirm held notions of interventions that would improve women/girls’ experiences in engineering. In reflecting on the research methods and troubling its design, we realized that we had approached the data with limited perspectives. A new approach to analysis opened up concepts and yielded findings that offer a different course of action for abating …

Dispositions Of First Year Teachers Who Teach Mathematics For Social Justice, Kyndall A. Brown

Journal of Multicultural Affairs

For over 10 years, mathematics educators have sought to use mathematics tasks with social justice contexts to engage students. While student teachers in the UCLA Teacher Education Program (TEP) engage in social justice tasks in their secondary mathematics method classes, very few teachers use these types of tasks with students in the classrooms. The master’s inquiry projects of three TEP students who engaged their students in social justice tasks are analyzed to determine how their backgrounds and positionality influenced their instructional decision making. Results show that personal experiences in the teachers’ lives, as well as a desire to increase motivation …

"Returning To The Root" Of The Problem: Improving The Social Condition Of African Americans Through Science And Mathematics Education, Vanessa R. Pitts Bannister, Julius Davis, Jomo Mutegi, Latasha Thompson, Deborah Lewis

Catalyst: A Social Justice Forum

The underachievement and underrepresentation of African Americans in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) disciplines have been well documented. Efforts to improve the STEM education of African Americans continue to focus on relationships between teaching and learning and factors such as culture, race, power, class, learning preferences, cultural styles and language. Although this body of literature is deemed valuable, it fails to help STEM teacher educators and teachers critically assess other important factors such as pedagogy and curriculum. In this article, the authors argue that both pedagogy and curriculum should be centered on the social condition of African Americans – …

Let's Talk Science, Krupesh Dave, Courtney Malo, Savannah Savage

Senior Theses

The focus of our senior thesis, “Let's Talk Science!", was to increase the exposure of elementary school-aged students to science. In particular, we focused on increasing the students’ opportunity to experience fun science experiments that still presented a strong take-home lesson. In doing this, our goal was to increase the students’ interest in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) careers.

We coordinated our outreach program with the Waverly After-School Program, a student organization that operates through the University of South Carolina Honors College in Columbia, South Carolina. Through the Waverly After-School Program, we were able to carry out our senior …