Usable STEM knowledge for tomorrow's STEM problems More universities and education programs need more STEM knowledge in formal and informal settings to guide learners in applying STEM learning to the creation of solutions. To address this challenge, Nancy Butler Songer, the dean of the College of Education at the University of Utah designed a learning approach, Solutioning, that guides youth to deepen science content through science and engineering practices. Creating a six-week curricular program, the learning approach provided opportunities for students to use engineering design to create and provide feedback on a trap design that would attract a local invasive insect that was harmful to their community. Research was conducted on studies to provide empirical evidence on student STEM knowledge and learning and their ability to define science and engineering. Research results indicate that even elementary-age students demonstrate significant improvement in their understanding of STEM arguments as evaluated with a pre-post assessment before and after implementing a six-week solutioning curricular program.
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S-STEM as the Culmination of a Multi-Institutional, Multi-Grant Program for the Success of Underrepresented Students
Although numerous programs exist in many institutions of higher education aimed at helping students from underrepresented groups achieve their goals of successfully graduating in a science, technology, mathematics, or engineering (STEM) field and moving on to the next educational level or a career, few are set up to support students across schools, from their entry into postsecondary education at the community college through the completion of their fouryear degree at a university and beyond. Furthermore, few programs are able to offer the full range of support that has been shown to be optimally effective toward promoting student success, as in, for example, the Building Engineering and Science Talent (BEST) model laid out by Chubin and Ward (2009). The reason for this is simple: rarely are the funds available from any given source to allow a program to provide all the supports students need. In this paper, we provide an example of how this problem was (at least partly) solved by the close interaction of two Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation and an S-STEM program, working within the context of other support opportunities at three community colleges and one university in Northern New Jersey. The programs and the mechanisms through which they support students are described and preliminary data examining their impacts are presented.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1909824
- PAR ID:
- 10489987
- Publisher / Repository:
- Understanding Interventions, Inc.
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Understanding Interventions Journal
- Volume:
- 14
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 1111-1111
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- STEM education undergraduate education student support programs underrepresented students multiple interventions
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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