Using Existing Evidence to Improve Undergraduate STEM Education

This session addresses the current evidence on undergraduate student learning, including how it has been collected and how it is being applied in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) classrooms. Speakers from three disciplines (life sciences, geoscience, and physics) will describe the strength of evidence in their disciplines on effective teaching and learning strategies and the relationship to improved outcomes. The issues raised in this symposium fit in a larger context. For more than a decade, blue-ribbon panels and reports have called for improvements in undergraduate STEM education in the United States. The goals are to recruit more students; better retain students, especially those from historically underrepresented groups; and help all students better understand and appreciate the importance of STEM to their lives, their communities, and the planet. Recruiting and retaining students from historically underrepresented populations has been a compelling emphasis. The growing understanding of how people learn points to ways in which pedagogies can be changed to improve student achievement. In response, public and private agencies have committed significant resources toward improving undergraduate STEM education. This session addresses the outcomes of some of these efforts and the implications for future research and practice.