Increasing Persistence of College Students in STEM

Graham, Mark; Frederick, Jennifer; Byars‐Winston, Angela; Hunter, Anne Barrie; Handelsman, Jo

doi:10.1126/science.1240487

Cited by 634 publications

(651 citation statements)

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“…Furthermore, research indicates that collaboration increases learning, and it is postulated that it does this by increasing skills such as problem solving, data analysis, and metacognition (i.e. learning about learning, as I discovered in my study group as an undergraduate) [14,[16][17][18][19][20].Several studies across Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) literature indicate that team-based active learning approaches, not lecture-based learning, improve the performance of under-represented groups to a greater extent than lecture-based learning [18,21,22]. In introductory biology courses, Haak et al found that incorporating even a moderate number of active-learning activities increased exam performance as compared to lecture alone, for all students, including under-represented groups.…”

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“…A common component of these programs is providing program participants a variety of activities outside of class such as research, peer-mentoring, social activities, and so forth to build social belonging-a "psychological lever" that can increase performance, persistence, and even health [6,8,9,14]. However, many of these programs are transient and dependent on considerable financial support.…”

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Social ecology of the classroom: Issues of inclusivity

Furge

2014

Biochem Molecular Bio Educ

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When I was an undergraduate my physical chemistry professor assigned weekly problem sets to be completed outside of class. We were encouraged to work together in small groups, but each student had to submit their own work-and, of course, be responsible for knowing the material for exams. Self-selected study groups spontaneously formed within the first week of classes. Having been on study abroad the previous year, I found myself in a group with a good friend who had also been on study abroad and another friend who I knew would be a strong contributor. We met faithfully one evening a week in a study room in the chemistry department to work through problems together after we had already worked on them on our own.After several weeks a fourth person whom I did not know showed up at our study group. My first reaction was, "Hey, what is he doing here? Our group doesn't need anyone else." Against my minor (privately held) objections he started working regularly with us and I found it reassuring that he had many of the same questions that I did. But it was the differences in his approach to answering these questions that I found most useful. He ended up being a great member of our team. My first impression of this person whom I never had worked with or spoken with before, totally changed when he was given a chance to contribute. From him, and the other members of my group, I learned a tremendous amount of chemistry, and a tremendous amount about learning.But what if the fourth person had not been welcomed to the group? What if we had excluded him because he wasn't in our social circle, he wasn't of our social class, he wasn't from our country, or he wasn't of our race? Stratification of classrooms, laboratories, study groups, and so forth can occur along many lines-socioeconomic, gender, race, sexual orientation/identity, religion, cultural background, attitudes, and even by athletic team [1][2][3][4]. Social psychology research indicates that this stratification is part of the human experience and is typically implicit [1,5] but can hinder student performance and persistence [6][7][8][9][10].One challenge in any classroom is to be cognizant of the potential stratification and marginalization of students, most insidiously by other students. In lecture-based classes, it might not be apparent to the instructor that marginalization is occurring, but when students leave the classroom to work on assignments-when professors can't see-stratification and marginalization happens whether faculty acknowledge it or not [11,12]. In a lecture course, the instructor has little recourse other than to let students be responsible for taking ownership of their learning and getting involved, as appropriate, with other students. But what if they don't, or are excluded based on who they are or the color of their skin?A student-centered classroom gives instructors a unique opportunity to create learning communities in the classroom and then to observe and even influence complex social dynamics [6-8, 10, 13, 14]. Active, cooperative learning i...

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Social ecology of the classroom: Issues of inclusivity

Furge

2014

Biochem Molecular Bio Educ

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“…Undergraduate instructors continue to struggle to engage, effectively teach, and retain postsecondary students, both generally and particularly among women and students of color (3,4). Federal analyses suggest that a 10% increase in retention of undergraduate STEM students could address anticipated STEM workforce shortfalls (5).…”

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Classroom sound can be used to classify teaching practices in college science courses

Owens

Seidel

Wong

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Active-learning pedagogies have been repeatedly demonstrated to produce superior learning gains with large effect sizes compared with lecture-based pedagogies. Shifting large numbers of college science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) faculty to include any active learning in their teaching may retain and more effectively educate far more students than having a few faculty completely transform their teaching, but the extent to which STEM faculty are changing their teaching methods is unclear. Here, we describe the development and application of the machine-learning-derived algorithm Decibel Analysis for Research in Teaching (DART), which can analyze thousands of hours of STEM course audio recordings quickly, with minimal costs, and without need for human observers. DART analyzes the volume and variance of classroom recordings to predict the quantity of time spent on single voice (e.g., lecture), multiple voice (e.g., pair discussion), and no voice (e.g., clicker question thinking) activities. Applying DART to 1,486 recordings of class sessions from 67 courses, a total of 1,720 h of audio, revealed varied patterns of lecture (single voice) and nonlecture activity (multiple and no voice) use. We also found that there was significantly more use of multiple and no voice strategies in courses for STEM majors compared with courses for non-STEM majors, indicating that DART can be used to compare teaching strategies in different types of courses. Therefore, DART has the potential to systematically inventory the presence of active learning with ∼90% accuracy across thousands of courses in diverse settings with minimal effort.active learning | evidence-based teaching | science education | lecture | assessment C urrent college STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) teaching in the United States continues to be lecture-based and is relatively ineffective in promoting learning (1, 2). Undergraduate instructors continue to struggle to engage, effectively teach, and retain postsecondary students, both generally and particularly among women and students of color (3, 4). Federal analyses suggest that a 10% increase in retention of undergraduate STEM students could address anticipated STEM workforce shortfalls (5). Replacing the standard lecture format with more active teaching strategies has been shown to increase

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“…While efforts to recruit pre-college students to STEM may increase initial interest, many students choose engineering to "change the world" and become disillusioned or lose interest 2 when faced with learning foundational concepts, which are presented without connecting the use of concepts to real-world problems. Currently, less than half of the three million students entering higher education to pursue a STEM field persist to earn a STEM degree 3 . The drop-out rate from STEM is even more prominent in minorities and women 4 ; however, participating in undergraduate research and developing a strong peer network has been shown to increase persistence 5,6,7,8,9 .…”

Section: Implementing a Challenge-inspired Undergraduate Experience Imentioning

confidence: 99%