This is the wiki for the ESTEME (Enhancing STEM Eduction) research group.

Like most public universities, it is expected that the number of undergraduate students at OSU will grow dramatically over the next several years, significantly straining the university’s capacity to provide high quality educational experiences. How can OSU develop and study best practices that transform the ways in which students become tomorrow’s successful STEM professionals and informed community members? How can these results be generalized and transferred to other institutions?

• How can best-practices such as active engagement and new technologies be leveraged to promote deep learning in large-enrollment lower division courses? How can these strategies be scaled up across and between disciplines?

• What prevents students from being able to integrate and extend the knowledge developed in specific courses in the core curriculum to the more complex, authentic problems and projects they face as professionals? Are there key methods or strategies for accomplishing this transfer of understanding that can be broadly adapted for use in all STEM courses?

The future success of the U.S. depends upon building a globally competitive, diverse STEM workforce. How can research and scholarship on teacher development, capacity building, and partnerships in K-12 education support the STEM professional pipeline?

• What kinds of “high-leverage” teaching practices in the STEM disciplines have the most impact? How do we assess these practices to know we are making a difference (outcome and process)?

• Does teaching through the integration of the STEM disciplines improve student attitudes and performance? If so, what might be necessary to change the culture of schools to accommodate this type of teaching?

• What would a pre-service elementary education program look like that has a strong STEM and cultural/linguistic diversity focus? What background knowledge would we expect pre-service teachers to have to enter a program with this focus, given the anxiety issues that many elementary teachers hold in science and mathematics?