Educational Practices

The Sandra K. Abell Conversations about College Science Teaching are monthly meetings intended to spark discussion about different approaches to science teaching and encourage interdisciplinary conversations among faculty and graduate students in STEM disciplines at the University of Missouri.

The University of Missouri offers a variety of undergraduate research programs to allow students to explore the unknown through hands-on work with faculty mentors and hopefully increase the number of students who pursue STEM fields.

University of Missouri's A TIME for PHYSICS FIRST is part of an organized movement to reverse the typical sequence of courses so that physics is taught in ninth grade. The project prepares Missouri's 9th grade science teachers to become intellectual leaders as they learn to teach a yearlong freshman physics course.

The University of Missouri’s geology field camp helps create the most effective undergraduate learning: active, cooperative, and demanding.

The University of Missouri implemented opportunities for faculty to redesign courses to be more effective and engaging for student learning by enhancing the effective use of technology in the classroom.

Seeking to raise the level of STEM literacy, the UKanTeach STEM Teacher Preparation Program provided a leverage point to address STEM literacy at multiple levels of formal schooling. Since UKanTeach students are regular undergraduate STEM discipline majors it became very important that CSTEM understand the major learning outcomes as they emerged with their majors.

UKanTeach supports effective STEM learning, effective communication about STEM, supports service learning, while exploring secondary mathematics and science teaching as an option at graduation. If you wish to be a better science communicator or teach secondary (grades 6-12) math or science, then UKanTeach can help.

The University of Kansas Center for STEM Learning (CSTEM) promotes and improves STEM learning by improving K-12 STEM teacher development, involving all citizens through informal STEM education and research outreach, and developing and expanding innovative, interdisciplinary STEM education research.

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Merit Fellows Program intention is to provide support, including financial) to students in their major and career pursuits, and create a cohort of STEM leaders within the departments of chemistry, integrative biology, and mathematics.

This Engineering Summer Scholars program is designed to reduce attrition among incoming engineering freshmen by creating a small-campus feel. Scholars come to campus during the summer and take courses, including a projects course they take together. The program is designed to help them adjust to life as students, become familiar with campus, and form support groups before the fall influx of students.