Meeting Abstract

MOORE.1  Monday, Jan. 7  Moore Lecture: Promising Practices in Undergraduate Science and Engineering Education: Why Don’t We Implement Them? Singer, SR; Carleton College ssinger@carleton.edu

Improving undergraduate science and engineering education for all students is a national imperative, called out in many recent reports, including the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology’s (PCAST) Engage to Excel and Excel. Globally we face profound challenges to provide adequate resources to a growing human population in the face of climate change, pollution, and loss of biodiversity that can be addressed, in part, by scientists, engineers, and a scientifically literate society. Undergraduate science education serves a range of purposes from providing foundational knowledge for all students, to preparing the future teachers who will be using the new Framework for K-12 Science Education, to preparing a STEM workforce. A shortage of STEM workers is predicted in the coming decade and improving retention of undergraduate STEM majors through improved STEM education in the first two years of college is a solution called out in the PCAST report. The National Research Council’s Discipline-based Education Research: Understanding and Improving Learning in Undergraduate Science and Engineering report provides the evidence base for effective teaching practices in undergraduate science and engineering. This presentation will explore what is known about improving students’ problem solving skills and conceptual understanding in science and engineering through more effective teaching and unpack the challenges to widespread uptake of these practices.