Imagining the Future of Undergraduate STEM Education Proceedings of a Virtual Symposium (2022) / Chapter Skim
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7 Innovations and Strategies for Moving Forward
7 Innovations and Strategies for Moving Forward
Pages 49-68
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From page 49... ...
CURRENT INNOVATIONS IN STEM EDUCATION Recent efforts to improve undergraduate STEM education and address inequities in the STEM environment were the focus of a paper prepared for the workshop by Sanjay Sarma and Aikaterini Bagiati and presented by B agiati. The paper explored approaches to STEM education that the authors identified as innovative, transformative, and sustainable, and it examined ways in which these innovations supported institutional and societal goals for STEM education, including goals related to equity.
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She argued that project-based and active learning could be used to advance an equity agenda by continuing to revise these techniques so that they increasingly reflect an approach that "calls for active student engagement with authentic, real-life problems and for projects deeply connected to student culture and identity." These approaches are designed to connect current learning experiences with TABLE 7-1 Innovations in STEM Education 1. Applying active learning pedagogies 6.
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One trend that is encouraging to her is the incorporation of the humanities, arts, and social sciences into a multidisciplinary STEM curriculum. "We believe that a more human and equitable solution cannot arise unless citizens and professionals are also introduced to fundamental concepts and skills, deeply rooted to the fields of humanities, social sciences, and the liberal arts," Bagiati explained.
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• Providing flexible, cost-efficient educational paths to continuous learning. Changing student demographics and the growth of exist ing groups such as refugee students have led to the emergence of new credentials and other novel postsecondary educational oppor tunities.
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In opening the panel, Mitra noted that the goals for undergraduate STEM education in 2040 are not materially different from the goals already being pursued: preparing students to tackle the complex societal problems of the twenty-first century. "I think it is for them to envision what has never been done and then do whatever it takes to make it happen," said Mitra.
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For Weekes, the most important goal of undergraduate STEM education should be to increase the understanding and awareness of what is going on in the world so that students will be better global citizens who can make ethical, sound decisions, and build healthier, safer, and more just societies. By 2040, she would like to see data incorporated naturally into education as a means of creating data-competent graduates and data-critical citizens.
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"We must employ innovative solutions such as ungrading to enable students to recognize their own agency and power within their learning development in STEM, and until we change the conversation on how we assign grades, treating our stu dents as humans will always be an afterthought." Sorensen-Unruh carries out her work with these goals at Central New Mexico Community College. She also commented on the need to challenge all blind and unthought ful use of educational technology, including what she called the predatory use of antiplagiarism software and artificial intelligence–powered exam proctoring software.
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EXPECTATIONS AND ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT WHO IS INVOLVED IN STEM After their brief presentations, planning committee member Monique Umphrey of Houston Community College, Northeast led the group in further discussion, beginning by asking Sorensen-Unruh to comment on the assumptions faculty members sometimes bring with them that make it difficult for them to adopt a vision that places students at the center of their educational experiences. Sorensen-Unruh said that a friend of hers talks about how faculty often think of students as cells on a spreadsheet because they are so used to looking at grading sheets that they forget their students are three-dimensional human beings.
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What is important, though, is to encourage these students to form their own networks and communities so that when they go back to their home institutions, they can continue getting support from their peers. Planning committee member and Olin College faculty member Stein reflected on the panel discussion and noted that each of the panelists had painted a picture of a future world that is inclusive, meaningful, and connected to one's own experiences.
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She along with Umphrey also noted that many students no longer go to Community College and then a 4-year institution, but rather go back and forth between the two along their educational journey. Responding to a question about providing support for students in STEM learning pathways, Carter called for an increase in the resources devoted to Minority-Serving Institutions, and to environmental justice work at all types of institutions.
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Neuromorphic artificial intelligence has produced efficient digital approaches to analyze cognitive tests, and STEM cognitive tutors abound and are shared widely across the nation. Different cognitive tutors scaffold student learning, measure competencies,
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In this imagined 2040 world, all students -- STEM and non-STEM -- start their education with a community project that has a STEM dimension such as assessing air quality and the incidence of asthma in mobile homes in which recent immigrants live or working on supply chain management for a local food bank to reduce food spoilage. "Scientists, social scientists, humanists, and artists come together to set the stage for learning in the world of convergence," said Singer.
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In his view, the most critical goal of undergraduate STEM education is a transition to defining program success by using key performance indicators that measure the cultivation of students who add value to the STEM workforce and their ability to earn a livable wage for a family of four and be successful in their chosen career. He added that by 2040, he would like to see a higher proportion of workers aged 55 and older getting STEM undergraduate d egrees, which will place Community Colleges in a lead role in undergraduate STEM education.
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He did note his concern that a radical reimagining of undergraduate STEM education could exacerbate inequities without a laser focus on ensuring better outcomes for underrepresented populations of students. Planning committee member and Morehouse College faculty member Gosha opened the discussion by asking the panelists to comment on how the STEM learning experience of 2040 could be designed from the start to be more equitable.
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He noted that he is working on a project called the Community College Growth Engine Fund7 that is bringing together six Community Colleges from across the nation to lead a demonstration of how Community Colleges can leverage innovation capacity, regional partnerships, and dynamic labor market data to identify and build subdegree "micropathways" with designated credentials that employers validate. These micropathways will enable learners to earn wages or salaries at or above the median level and stackable credit for degree attainment.
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Gonzaga University dean Annemarie Caño began the panel session by saying that project-based and problem-based learning and crafting experiences designed to solve problems that are meaningful to students bring the interdisciplinary piece into undergraduate STEM education and offer students an opportunity to integrate learning from various disciplines and be more creative. At the same time, she added, it becomes a challenge to prepare students and faculty to engage in a different kind of learning experience.
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From his perspective as founder of San Diego Code School, Roberts said that the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the process of reimagining what undergraduate STEM education will look like in the future. In his opinion, undergraduate institutions need to figure out each student's "superpower" that can help them make a big impact in the workforce and 8 Additional information is available at https://populous.com/making-case-innovation-districts.
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Some 65 to 70 percent of the students at these institutions are from underrepresented groups and are primarily first-generation students from low-income populations. The changing makeup of this population, she said, will affect Community Colleges in 2040 in that more adult students will attend community colleges and the majority of these "nontraditional" Community College students will be working as they go to school.
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She suggested incorporating STEM-based, service-learning experiences into the undergraduate experience. Horton agreed that team teaching should be an important part of the undergraduate STEM educational system.
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68 IMAGINING THE FUTURE OF UNDERGRADUATE STEM EDUCATION good and that the work that we do then is in the reassembling of it," she said. She also called for creating more local hubs that can work together to serve their communities, work together to improve the educational system, and work together to scale programs that work locally.
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