Welcome


This blog is dedicated to the topics of Course materials, Innovation, and Technology in Education. it is intended as an information source for the college store industry, or anyone interested in how course materials are changing. Suggestions for discussion topics or news stories are welcome.

The site uses Google's cookies to provide services and analyze traffic. Your IP address and user agent are shared with Google, along with performance and security statistics to ensure service quality, generate usage statistics, detect abuse and take action.

Wednesday, August 8, 2018

First Impressions Count in STEM Retention

How can universities attract and retain more students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses to fill the growing need for employees in these fields? As it turns out, one of the ways is to ensure students have a positive first experience with STEM education, according to University Business.

After noticing that a lot of students who enrolled in an introductory STEM course never took any more, Michigan State University put more resources toward bolstering instruction in these 100-level classes. When the instruction improved, so did student success, and more students continued to sign up for STEM classes.

“Twenty years ago, especially at research universities, a lot of faculty would see their primary job as research, and teaching as something they had to do,” James Fairweather, professor emeritus of higher adult and lifelong education at MSU, told UB. “I’d say the attitude of faculty toward teaching today is more positive. I don’t think they see it as the dregs of their job.”

Other institutions—including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Howard University, and Purdue University—also found that providing more professional development to faculty to help them brush up their teaching skills resulted in better student outcomes in STEM courses. Some faculty needed ideas for strategies to help struggling students get up to speed, such as giving regular quizzes to see how they were progressing or providing questions they could consult while reading course assignments.

The University of Arizona also placed more emphasis on introductory STEM courses, creating more interactive classroom spaces to encourage hands-on learning and collaboration among students. A storage room for library journals was converted into a learning space with tables and chairs that could be moved around into groups. The configuration worked so well that UA will have a total of 30 similar spaces available for classes this fall.