Why ‘Alternative’ Careers in STEM Aren’t ‘Alternative’
The stigma associated with pursuing alternative career paths may be discouraging scientists from wanting to engage the public in matters of science.
Not Your Parents’ College Experience – What Today’s Students Need from Higher Ed
The charts and figures in this interactive article show the increasing diversity of today’s students in higher education.
Higher education is a critical engine of social mobility and economic development for our country. For students, earning a postsecondary degree or credential is the surest pathway to economic opportunity and the chance to lead a healthy, productive life.
Today’s college students are more diverse than ever before. They are older students who may be juggling other responsibilities such as work and family. They are first-generation college-goers and students from low-income families who have high hopes but face new and unfamiliar challenges. And they are students of color who have gotten to and through college at lower rates than their white peers.
To help more Americans achieve their dreams and to build a stronger economy for all of us, we need to better understand who our students are and what they need to succeed. READ MORE.
Zero Correlation Between Evaluations and Learning
A number of studies suggest that student evaluations of teaching are unreliable due to various kinds of biases against instructors. Yet conventional wisdom remains that students learn best from highly rated instructors. What if the data backing up conventional wisdom were off? A new study suggests that past analyses linking student achievement to high student teaching evaluation ratings are flawed, a mere “artifact of small sample sized studies and publication bias.”
Read the whole article featured in Inside Higher Education here.
Find the study here: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.stueduc.2016.08.007
U of Vermont’s College of Medicine announces it will get rid of lecture courses and completely reshape the faculty role — a first for a traditional medical school.
Four years after two senior academics at Stanford University challenged medical schools to stop lecturing and start flipping their classrooms, major reforms at underway at a handful of colleges to change the way they teach medicine. Read the whole article here.
A New Approach to General Chemistry
Researchers from Washington State University and CU-Boulder present a model for undergraduate chemistry curriculum development based on five important questions and offer a new general chemistry course — CLUE: Chemistry, Life, the Universe, and Everything — as an example of materials developed in this way.
SFES Influence Teaching Practices of Dept. Colleagues
Departments are increasingly hiring Science Faculty with Education Specialties (SFES) to help improve undergraduate science education. According to a recent study, SFES report their strongest impact is influencing other faculty’s teaching practices.
Seeking Public Comments on STEM Education Indicators Report
The public is invited to provide feedback on a draft National Academies report regarding national indicators to monitor undergraduate STEM education. Click through to download the report and offer comments.
CBE-Life Sciences Education: Special Issue – Broadening Participation in the Life Sciences
Among the featured articles in this special issue are:
- Improving Underrepresented Minority Student Persistence in STEM
- New Measures Assessing Predictors of Academic Persistence for Historically Underrepresented Racial/Ethnic Undergraduates in Science
- Science That Matters: The Importance of a Cultural Connection in Underrepresented Students’ Science Pursuit
- Diversity Exiting the Academy: Influential Factors for the Career Choice of Well-Represented and Underrepresented Minority Scientists
- Mentoring for Inclusion: The Impact of Mentoring on Undergraduate Researchers in the Sciences