With support from the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education Program: Education and Human Resources (IUSE:EHR), this project aims to serve the national interest by implementing an evidence-based, experiment-focused teaching approach in multiple STEM disciplines. The Experiment Centric Pedagogy (ECP) has been successful in promoting motivation and enhancing academic achievement of electrical engineering students. ECP uses an inexpensive, safe, and portable electronic instrumentation system that can be used in classrooms and student laboratories. When paired with appropriate software and sensors, it can be used to measure a wide range of properties, from vibration to oxygen levels. In this Engaged Student Learning project, ECP will be adapted for use in biology, chemistry, civil engineering, computer science, industrial engineering, transportation systems, and physics. Because using electronic instrumentation to make scientific measurements is common in all STEM disciplines, ECP may be an especially valuable STEM teaching approach.
This project will adapt and implement ECP, as well as assess the impact of ECP on student success measures. The first project objective is to provide workshops at which STEM faculty will learn how to use ECP as an active learning pedagogy. These workshops will be open to all STEM faculty, not just project faculty. Non-project faculty might adopt ECP, thereby yielding secondary project benefits. The second objective is to integrate ECP into multiple STEM disciplines and in various settings, such as in traditional classrooms and teaching laboratories, and at home use by students. Instructors may implement ECP for in-class demonstrations, for cooperative group experiments in class or laboratories, and for homework assignments. Project faculty will be supported from early ECP adaptation through implementation and assessment. The third objective is to measure student success outcomes resulting from the use of ECP. Student success will be measured by academic performance as well as retention and graduation rates. In addition, validated instruments will be used to measure key constructs associated with student success, such as motivation, epistemic and perceptual curiosity, engineering identity, and self-efficacy. Results of formative assessments are expected to guide the project, and the summative project assessment is expected to demonstrate positive impacts on more than 1,000 STEM students, a considerable proportion of whom are from groups historically underrepresented in STEM. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
