Workshop outline:
Identifying and Supporting At-Risk Students in STEM Education
outline of the workshop on Thursday July 2, 2015. 10:00-11:30
1. Welcome and brief introduction about the project
Participating institutions
Objectives and activities (abbreviated overview of work packages)
2. Active phase 1
Participants discuss in small groups one of the following two questions:
-What are the three most important (critical?) technical skills for students entering STEM education at your institution?
-What are the three most important (critical?) non-technical skills for students entering STEM education at your institution?
3. Exchange of results (plenary)
4. Active phase 2
Participants discuss in small groups one of the following two questions:
-What measures does your university use to gauge entering students’ readiness for higher education in STEM fields?
-What measures does your university use to support at-risk students in STEM fields?
5. Exchange of results (plenary)
6. Short presentation of project results
This work is co-funded by Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership (2014-1-BE02-KA200-000462) of the European Union.
An outline of the project:
For Europe to remain at the forefront of scientific and technological development, the current shortage of persons trained in these fields at secondary and higher education has to be overcome. While some progress has been made in increasing enrolment in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) programs in most European countries as stipulated by the Lisbon Objectives, the most pressing problem is now that of low retention (i.e., high dropout) rates in STEM programs.
This project aims to improve the retention rates of higher education STEM programs by focusing on the academic readiness of incoming STEM-students. We will identify among incoming STEM students those that are at high risk of dropout and may thus need additional support and we will support those students with the help of intervention programs in the early phase of their studies. To achieve the above goal three different objectives will be realized: We will identify the key STEM skills (objective 1). And once these are characterized, existing diagnostic tests are selected and their predictive power will be gauged in order to identify with high validity the at-risk students in need of extra support (objective 2). Finally, we will investigate which intervention tools can support these at-risk students and we will measure the effectiveness of current remediation programs (objective 3).
Special attention will be paid during this project to first generation students (i.e., students who have parents without a degree in higher education) and the specific problems they may experience.
Led by the University of Leuven (KU Leuven), the project will be carried out by three key partners (Hamburg University of Technology [TUHH], University of Žilina and KU Leuven), three supporting partners (Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Aalto University, and University of Birmingham) and the European Society for Engineering Education (SEFI) as a network partner.
http://iiw.kuleuven.be/english/readystemgo
