The National & State Context of STEM Education: Past, Present, and Future

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STEM II Initiative-Updates from Participating Institutions (Part 1)

STEM II Initiative – Updates from Participating Institutions (Part 1) is made up of a series of “sampler sessions” so that interested individuals can get an overview but not comprehensive coverage. Dr. Nathan Moon will introduce this session by telling a few important lessons gleaned from the STEM I evaluations. Second, Dr. Tim Howard will talk about the STEM II Initiative at Columbus State. Third, Dr. Judy Awong-Taylor will provide information concerning the STEM II Initiative at Georgia Gwinnett College. Fourth, Dr. Rosalie Richards will discuss what is happening with the STEM II Initiative at Georgia College & State University

A qualitative analysis to identify the elements that support department level change in the life sciences: The PULSE Vision & Change Recognition Program

The 2011 report, Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call to Action, provided the impetus to mobilize the undergraduate life sciences education community to affect change in order to enhance the educational experiences of life sciences majors. The work of the appointed Partnership for Undergraduate Life Sciences Education (PULSE) Vision and Change (V&C) Leadership Fellows has focused on the development of programs and resources to support departmental change. In this report, we present a qualitative assessment of several documents generated from the PULSE V&C Leadership Fellow Recognition Team. The Recognition Team developed two initiatives to provide departments with feedback on their change process. The first initiative, the validated PULSE V&C Rubrics, enables departments to collaboratively self-assess their progress in enacting change. The second initiative, the PULSE Recognition Program, involves completion of the aforementioned Rubrics and a site-visit by two Recognition Team members to provide external insights and suggestions to foster a department’s change process. Eight departments participated in the Recognition Program in 2014. An evaluation of the documents yielded from the Recognition Program review of seven of the eight departments and a comparison of Rubric scores from before and three years following the site-visits uncovered several common elements required for successful department level change. These elements include an institutional culture that values and supports excellence in teaching and learning with resources and infrastructure, a departmental emphasis on program and course level assessment, and, most importantly, a departmental champion who actively supports endeavors that enhance teaching excellence

The PULSE Vision & Change Rubrics, Version 1.0: A Valid and Equitable Tool to Measure Transformation of Life Sciences Departments at All Institution Types

The PULSE Vision & Change Rubrics, version 1.0, assess life sciences departments’ progress toward implementation of the principles of the Vision and Change report. This paper reports on the development of the rubrics, their validation, and their reliability in measuring departmental change aligned with the Vision and Change recommendations. The rubrics assess 66 different criteria across five areas: Curriculum Alignment, Assessment, Faculty Practice/Faculty Support, Infrastructure, and Climate for Change. The results from this work demonstrate the rubrics can be used to evaluate departmental transformation equitably across institution types and represent baseline data about the adoption of the Vision and Change recommendations by life sciences programs across the United States. While all institution types have made progress, liberal arts institutions are farther along in implementing these recommendations. Generally, institutions earned the highest scores on the Curriculum Alignment rubric and the lowest scores on the Assessment rubric. The results of this study clearly indicate that the Vision & Change Rubrics, version 1.0, are valid and equitable and can track long-term progress of the transformation of life sciences departments. In addition, four of the five rubrics have broad applicability and can be used to evaluate departmental transformation by other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines

Introducing Research Skills into the Introductory Biology Curriculum

As part of an initiative to implement a 4-year Undergraduate Research Experience for all SST students at Georgia Gwinnett College, modules of the introductory biology lab curriculum were modified to include opportunities for students to experience the processes of science and to develop basic research skills. Presenters will discuss the research-based aspects of the modules, implementation, and assessment

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As the nation’s first four-year public college established in the 21st century, Georgia Gwinnett College (GGC), located in Lawrenceville, Georgia, has grown from fewer than 200 students in 2006 to an enrollment of more than 9,500 in th

Lessons Learned from Development and Implementation of a STEM Service Learning Project

What questions and conversations do 3-way multi-level blended STEM teaching partnerships generate? Participating college faculty reflect on their scholarly teaching of cooperative problem-based learning designed to empower college STEM majors to foster development of scientific habits of mind in young students. Themes include mentoring techniques, feedback mechanisms, and emerging signature pedagogies for this type of college internship experience. In the service learning partnership explored in this session, college interns teach a semester-long inquiry-based enrichment program which places 5th graders in the role of science sleuths. Science faculty teach pedagogy to their college interns while partnering with them to design pedagogy, labs, and science mysteries based on the specifications, formative, and summative feedback from elementary teachers. The college interns guide their 5th grade students to generate hypotheses, perform experiments to test these hypotheses, interpret lab results, and propose a solution to a science mystery based on their results. The faculty panel will engage in interactive reflection with the audience exploring questions and emergent themes based on summaries of stakeholder surveys and focus groups. Lessons learned from this teaching and learning experience will be presented in an interactive format designed to explore generalizability and pose new questions in the ongoing research

Updates from and Lessons Learned in Delivering a Service Learning Course to Enhance Elementary STEM Education in Gwinnett County

Georgia Gwinnett College’s (GGC) School of Science and Technology (SST) is continuing a science investigation partnership with a local elementary school. College interns use hands-on investigations to help 5th grade students solve a science mystery. Updates on progress since last year’s presentation, including the design and delivery of a new science mystery involving elementary chemistry and physical science, as well as program modification based on participant feedback will be presented

Course-Embedded Research and Service Learning Internships-GGC’s High Impact Practices for Enhancing Student Engagement and Learning in STEM Fields

GGC’s STEM Initiative includes a 4-year undergraduate research experience (4-yr URE) initiative designed to promote the success of students in STEM education, and a Service Learning Internship course designed to provide opportunities for STEM undergraduate students to gain teaching experience in science at the K-5 level. We will describe components of our STEM Initiative and progress made to date

STEM II Initiative at Georgia Gwinnett College

GGC’s 4-year undergraduate research experience (4-yr URE) incorporates research skills and experiences in key courses in all four years of the STEM undergraduate curriculum. We will describe how a USG-STEM initiative II grant funds the development of course- embedded research modules, SoTL projects, and individual faculty–student research projects