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It is widely acknowledged that active learning strategies increase engagement and long-term retention, while reducing attrition and frustration of students with less academic preparation and self-efficacy. Promoting active learning methods in STEM has been a long-term project in higher education. This study examines the perceptions of active learning techniques in online STEM education, leveraging a large, diverse sample (N = 727) across four STEM fields. The post-pandemic context of the study offers unique insights into how students and faculty perceive the effectiveness of various active learning methods in a rapidly changing educational environment. For eight of the nine methods studied, more than half of students and faculty found each active learning strategy to be helpful for online learning achievement. On average, both students and faculty found active learning methods to be modestly more important in online courses than face-to-face courses. A novel finding that was striking was that by a wide margin, both students and faculty perceived requiring activities more helpful than offering them on an optional basis. This implies that active learning methods become a meaningful portion of the course grade. However, faculty and students disagree on how heavily such activities should contribute to course grades. On average, students believe about half of their grade (52%) should comprise active learning activities, whereas faculty report that 32% of grades in their courses come from formative active learning assessments. The implications of activity-based STEM learning in online courses are discussed. 

This study investigates students’ perceptions of rehearsal (test preparation) and testing after the pandemic forced increased online teaching use and experimentation. Data was gathered from information and decision sciences (IDS) students in an underrepresented minority (URM) serving university. Responses from 136 participants were analyzed and revealed four major findings. The single most interesting finding was that students, on average, preferred graded rehearsal activities over optional activities. Second, rehearsal activities were more important in online than face-to-face settings. Third, students overwhelmingly prefer online exams, on which they feel they perform better and which they find less anxiety-producing. Finally, despite research showing the importance of online proctoring for major defined-answer testing, instructor use of proctoring and monitoring is split between those who do and do not use concrete methods, with lockdown browser being common and live webcam less common. These interconnected findings are discussed. 

In many disciplines, the growth of online courses was propelled by the COVID-19 pandemic, but this trend moderated as health concerns receded. Before the pandemic, computer science-related disciplines were less keen on online labs because of their inherently hands-on nature. This study presents a comparative analysis of student and faculty perceptions towards online labs in three computing-related disciplines a year after the pandemic. Through a survey with 242 students and 20 faculty responses, we found students were, overall, positive about their online lab experience—as were faculty. Students and instructors both agree that (1) where provided, online lab courses are being taught effectively, and (2) it is crucial to continue investing in technology infrastructure to enhance the quality and accessibility of both online and in-person labs. However, students and instructors disagree on two issues: (1) teamwork for lab activities and assignments (i.e., faculty tended to have a more optimistic view of online collaborative activities); and (2) modality for lab sessions (i.e., student preferences were evenly split between synchronous and asynchronous labs while faculty mostly preferred synchronous online labs). Faculty appear more optimistic about the effectiveness of online labs but show heightened concern regarding technological disruptions. Notably, all comments from students asserted the importance of having recorded demonstrations, even when a live synchronous demonstration may have been provided. Utilizing recordings and making them available is an example of a best practice worth promoting despite the added effort for faculty.