The project, known as SEMINAL: Student Engagement in Mathematics through an Institutional Network for Active Learning, has been led by San Diego State University, the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, which have reworked their math curricula to improve student success in early courses, particularly students from underrepresented minority groups.
Theories abound as to why women remain underrepresented in many fields. A new study says that perceived gender bias in a given discipline is the primary criterion women use for selecting a college major, not the perception that a field is science or math oriented.
Deborah J. Cohan, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of South Carolina at Beaufort, suggests strategies for generating discussion and engagement in large classes.
“WHERE INNOVATION IS BRUIN,” the catchphrase of the UCLA Center for Education Innovation and Learning in the Sciences (CEILS), also exemplifies the Science and Engineering Library’s approach to reconfiguring its facility in Boelter Hall to better support student and faculty teaching and learning needs. Case in point: Two current pilot projects in which the library is working with CEILS and the Undergraduate Research Center—Sciences.
Read the full article in the Library Newsroom.
California Professor of the Year Neil Garg is the 2018 recipient of the prestigious Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching. The Cherry Award honors outstanding professors who are extraordinary, inspiring teachers with a positive, long-lasting effect on students and a record of distinguished scholarship.
View the full article in the UCLA Newsroom.
UCLA: HHMI Postdoctoral Scholar in Environmental DNA Research and Science Education Research & Communication
UCLA department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) is recruiting one full-time postdoctoral scholar to perform environmental DNA (eDNA) research combined with science communication and discipline-based education research (DBER). The position is ideal for a candidate with a background in ecology and/or genetics as well as interest in curriculum development in undergraduate education. In collaboration with project partners in the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) at UC Santa Cruz, the postdoctoral scholar will help establish a new education program called eSIE: environmental DNA for Science Investigation and Education, supported by a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) jointly awarded to UCSC and UCLA. The scholar will work with a team of researchers and science education experts on the eSIE program, and have the opportunity to publish in both scientific research and DBER fields.
UC Santa Cruz: HHMI Postdoctoral Scholar in Environmental DNA Research, Education, and Outreach
UC Santa Cruz department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) is recruiting one full-time postdoctoral scholar to perform environmental DNA (eDNA) research and science education outreach. The position is ideal for a candidate with a background in molecular biology. In collaboration with project partners in the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) at UC Los Angeles, the postdoctoral scholar will help establish a new education program called eSIE: environmental DNA for Science Investigation and Education, supported by a grant from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) jointly awarded to UCSC and UCLA. The scholar will work with a team of researchers and science education experts on eDNA research that connects to the eSIE program.
As faculty developers, we cannot control all aspects of the teaching and learning environment. Sometimes local, national, and international events send shock waves through our communities that most of us cannot ignore and that all of us—students, faculty, and staff—experience in different ways. Although we can never predict how to respond in such moments, here are a handful of resources that might help with framing conversations both in and outside of the classroom—click HERE.
Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) professionals generate a stream of scientific discoveries and technological innovations that fuel job creation and national economic growth. Ensuring a robust supply of these professionals is critical for sustaining growth and creating jobs growth at a time of intense global competition. Undergraduate STEM education prepares the STEM professionals of today and those of tomorrow, while also helping all students develop knowledge and skills they can draw on in a variety of occupations and as individual citizens. However, many capable students intending to major in STEM later switch to another field or drop out of higher education altogether, partly because of documented weaknesses in STEM teaching, learning and student supports. Improving undergraduate STEM education to address these weaknesses is a national imperative.
The new report identifies national indicators to measure the status and quality of undergraduate STEM education.
Even though colleges and universities in the United States produce nearly two million graduates each year (Ryan and Bauman 2016), American higher education is not without significant challenges related to the success of its most valuable stakeholders—undergraduate students. Arguably, most pressing among these is the hemorrhagic loss of talented undergraduate students from the STEM disciplines. Indeed, every fifteen minutes, a student majoring in STEM either changes his or her major to a non-STEM discipline or withdraws from college altogether (NSF 2017). This phenomenon disproportionately, although not exclusively, affects African American, Latino, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Native American (collectively, AALANA) students, who now comprise the fastest-growing undergraduate populations in US colleges and universities (NSF 2017).