Curriculum Reform
Activity Director: Dr. Robert Freeman
In STEM disciplines the conventional approach has been to teach for efficiency first. Only after students have mastered certain content are they given opportunities to develop innovation in novel real-world settings during their final senior year courses. This approach has some downsides. First, studies have shown that one reason students leave STEM programs in the first few years is that they found too few opportunities to engage in creative activities that relate to the real world (Seymour & Hewitt, 1997). Other studies have found that focusing primarily on efficiency in early courses can stifle attempts at innovation in later educational experiences (Rayne et al., 2006) and traditional methods can decrease students' innovative performance (Martin et al., 2007). Therefore, this proposed activity aims to introduce CBI into the STEM curriculum incorporating DoD applications to enhance student learning by providing opportunities for students to see the relevance of studies to the real world and to develop adaptive expertise. This activity incorporates challenges based on DoD problems, and the well-tested and well-understood VaNTH model tailored to how people learn and the legacy cycle. The net result is greater efficiency and effectiveness in STEM instruction of minority students, greater retention on minority students, and greater understanding and interest in DoD by minority STEM students.