A Framework of College Student Buy-in to Evidence-Based Teaching Practices in STEM: The Roles of Trust and Growth Mindset

This investigation tests a college science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) student buy-in framework and contributes to understanding the social and cognitive factors influencing students in evidence-based teaching contexts. Students’ level of commitment to instructors’ teaching practices can be key to attaining many desired student outcomes of undergraduate STEM education reform.

Framework for Systemic Change in Undergraduate STEM Teaching and Learning

The Framework for Systemic Change in Undergraduate STEM Teaching and Learning provides a change model for improving the quality and effectiveness of STEM teaching and learning at research universities. The Framework recognizes the wider setting in which educational innovations take place — the department, the college, the university and the external environment — and addresses key institutional elements necessary for sustained improvement to undergraduate STEM education.

Progress Toward Achieving Systemic Change: A Five-Year Status Report on the AAU Undergraduate STEM Education Initiative

In September 2011, the Association of American Universities launched a major initiative to improve undergraduate STEM education. The overall objective was to influence the culture of STEM departments at AAU institutions so that faculty members are encouraged and supported to use teaching practices proven by research to be effective in engaging students in STEM education and in helping students learn. Progress Toward Achieving Systemic Change provides a five-year status report on the AAU Undergraduate STEM Education Initiative.

Promoting Transformation of Undergraduate STEM Education

During a 2019 workshop, the American Association of Universities (AAU) convened experts involved in leading, researching, evaluating and funding efforts to transform undergraduate STEM teaching across all sectors of higher education. The goal was to synthesize essential issues and challenges in designing, leading, and researching institutional and multi-institutional transformation projects to improve undergraduate STEM education.

Proceedings for the NSEC 2017 National Conference

Abstracts and presentations from the NSEC 2017 National Conference. The conference is for representatives from campus STEM Education Centers or Centers for Teaching and Learning that have a STEM agenda, or those who work closely with these centers. The focus is specifically on centers engaged in improving undergraduate STEM education, including teacher preparation and broader impacts in STEM. It is opportunity for center staff to learn from one another.

Proceedings NSEC 2016 National Conference

Abstracts and presentations from the 2016 SMTI/NSEC National Conference held on June 8-9, 2016. The theme was Center Roles in Improving Undergraduate STEM Education. The Keynote Speaker was Shirley Malcom, Head of Education and Human Resources Programs (EHR), American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and committee chair of the National Academies' Barriers and Opportunities for 2-Year and 4-Year STEM Degrees.

Data Management Plan for Preparing Secondary Mathematics Teachers with Video Cases of Students’ Functional Reasoning

Data management plan for 2016 NSF Education and Human Resources (EHR) Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Education and Human Resources (IUSE: EHR) Program Proposal

Toward “Inclusifying” the Underrepresented Minority in STEM Education Research

Research in undergraduate STEM education often requires the collection of student demographic data to assess outcomes related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Unfortunately, this collection of demographic data continues to be constrained by socially constructed categories of race and ethnicity, leading to problematic panethnic groupings such as “Asian” and “Latinx.” Furthermore, these all-encompassing categories of race and ethnicity exasperate the problematic “underrepresented minority” (URM) label when only specific races and ethnicities are categorized as URMs.

A close look at change: the role of an instructional-team community on an Instructor’s evolution during instructional reform

In transforming undergraduate STEM education, it is important to understand the personal and contextual factors that impact instructors’ reform efforts. In this study we explored an instructor’s drivers and motivators for change in perspectives and practice, with an emphasis on the impact of an internal community (her ‘instructional team’) comprised of a co-instructor, graduate teaching assistants, and several undergraduate learning assistants (LAs). Data were collected over two semesters through classroom observations, interviews, faculty learning community discussion recordings, and team email communications. We identified pedagogical discontentment as a primary initial trigger for the instructor’s engagement in instructional reform, guided by personal values and beliefs about student learning and the nature of her discipline. The instructional-team community, which was established during a period of instructional distress, provided 1) consistent support in instructional planning, implementation, assessment, and reflection processes, 2) unique access to different perspectives on the nuances of the teaching environment and student challenges, 3) increased space, time, and motivation for the instructor to more critically reflect on her teaching and engage in creative instructional design. This case illustrates the potential effects of instructional team-based communities on instructors as they work to improve their practice and reform their courses.