A Systems Model of Innovation Processes in University STEM Education

Abstract

Drawing upon understanding of innovation processes in other domains, we construct a model of the innovation system for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. The model suggests that higher educational innovation in research universities is severely disadvantaged in many regards. Paramount is the lack of a "natural" innovator who, analogous to the engineer in an industrial research and development lab, has professional training and incentives to perform a significant professional role-teaching. The model suggests a number of organizational and structural factors that must be addressed, systemically, to bolster prospects of educational improvement at research universities. Changing single factors, without attention to the interactive systems nature of STEM educational processes, is unlikely to prove effective in improving undergraduate education.

Barriers to Faculty Pedagogical Change: Lack of Training, Time, Incentives, and…Tensions with Professional Identity?

“…In fact, there are some reports that change in instruction can lead to poor teaching evaluations, due to student resistance to change, which can negatively affect progression to tenure (Anderson, 2002, 2007). Until universities reward teaching as much as research (Hannan, 2005; Porter et al ., 2006) or find ways to better integrate teaching and research (Kloser et al , 2011), the pressure is on faculty, in particular pretenure faculty, to spend the majority of their time on research, sometimes at the expense of high-quality teaching or any attention to the constant calls for change in teaching practice.…”

Post secondary project-based learning in science, technology, engineering and mathematics

“…Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in K-12 classrooms enhance motivation for learning and improve student interest through achievement in these multidisciplinary subjects (STEM Integration in K-12 Education: Status, Prospects, and an Agenda for Research, 2014). Initially, STEM education was a goal for K-12 classrooms; however, more recently it is also being proposed in university settings (Porter, Roessner, Oliver & Johnson, 2006;Redish & Hammer, 2009). Developing a pedagogical approach that integrates STEM was suggested to encourage the improvement of learning attitudes in the learning community (Tseng, Chang, Lou & Chen, 2013), while preparing students for post-secondary schooling (STEM Integration in K-12 Education: Status, Prospects, and an Agenda for Research, 2014).…”

“…Developing a pedagogical approach that integrates STEM was suggested to encourage the improvement of learning attitudes in the learning community (Tseng, Chang, Lou & Chen, 2013), while preparing students for post-secondary schooling (STEM Integration in K-12 Education: Status, Prospects, and an Agenda for Research, 2014). STEM is influencing the curriculum in undergraduate level courses (Porter et al, 2006;Redish & Hammer, 2009;Tseng et al, 2013). The explicit connections of STEM to PjBL are oriented towards increasing student understanding and self-efficacy through interdisciplinary studies (Barron et al, 1998;Blumenfeld & Krajcik, 1994;Lebow, 1995; STEM Integration in K-12 Education: Status, Prospects, and an Agenda for Research, 2014).…”

The Teaching Mode Research and Practice of the Engineering Personnel Innovation Ability Training Based on Virtual Instrument Experiment

“…For example, Stanford university demand to study the introduction to the humanities for a year. Students of Harvard University must choose a core course in other areas [9]. Appropriately increasing the proportion of elective courses, combining with a crossdisciplinary, enriching the content of courses, optimizing knowledge structure of students are all very important.…”