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IJIET 2015 Vol.5(9): 688-692 ISSN: 2010-3689
DOI: 10.7763/IJIET.2015.V5.593

Classroom Implementation of Active Instructional Strategies for Undergraduate STEM Education

Xin Gao and Brian Schwartz

Abstract—A variety of teaching strategies for undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) educationhave been studied over the years. Most of them are centered at active/collaborative pedagogy. However, most research is focused on introductory, topic courses and very little is targeted at more advanced, calculus based core courses for STEM majors. Even fewer papers provided detailed and sufficient classroom implementation of these strategies. This paper is to fill the gap and provide example strategies and sample assignments for two distinct courses, an introductory science course and an advanced STEM program core course. These strategies shift from traditional lecture-based teaching methods to activity-based methods. According to the Learning Pyramid of the National Training Laboratories of the United States, this shift can increase the average student retention rate from the 10%-30% levels to the 80-90% levels.The results on retention rates in this study are consistent with the Learning Pyramid thesis.

Index Terms—STEM, undergraduate, education, activities.

Xin Gao is with the Natural Sciences Department, LaGuardia Community College of The City University of New York (CUNY), Long Island City, NY 11101 USA (e-mail: xgao@lagcc.cuny.edu).
Brian Schwartz is with the Physics Department, Brooklyn College of The City University of New York, Brooklyn, NY 11210 USA (e-mail: Bschwartz@gc.cuny.edu).

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Cite: Xin Gao and Brian Schwartz, "Classroom Implementation of Active Instructional Strategies for Undergraduate STEM Education," International Journal of Information and Education Technology vol. 5, no. 9, pp. 688-692, 2015.

General Information

  • ISSN: 2010-3689 (Online)
  • Abbreviated Title: Int. J. Inf. Educ. Technol.
  • Frequency: Monthly
  • DOI: 10.18178/IJIET
  • Editor-in-Chief: Prof. Jon-Chao Hong
  • Managing Editor: Ms. Nancy Y. Liu
  • E-mail: editor@ijiet.org
  • Abstracting/ Indexing: Scopus (CiteScore 2023: 2.8), INSPEC (IET), UGC-CARE List (India), CNKI, EBSCO, Google Scholar
  • Article Processing Charge: 800 USD

 

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