Development Opportunities

Network for Academic Renewal: Engaged STEM Learning -- From Promising to Pervasive Practices

Sponsored by: AAC&U; Network for Academic Renewal
Date: Thursday, March 24, 2011 - 8:00am - Saturday, March 26, 2011 - 8:00am
Registration Deadline: March 2, 2011
Location: Miami, Florida

About the Conference

Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL), in partnership with AAC&U, announces the 2011 Network for Academic Renewal conference, Engaged STEM Learning: From Promising to Pervasive Practices. This interactive, hands-on conference will help campuses adapt, scale up, and sustain effective practices in STEM teaching and learning. The conference is designed for participants who wish to develop faculty and institutional leadership in STEM reform, broaden student participation and success in STEM fields, better assess engaged STEM learning in both the majors and general education, and connect the revitalization of STEM learning with ongoing campus work in Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP).

Research in cognitive science and student learning assessment provides solid evidence that engaged learning practices and instructional models (e.g., problem-based learning, just-in-time teaching) help students learn much more effectively. Yet such practices are not widely implemented in undergraduate STEM classrooms around the country.

Compounding this issue is the very real concern about student interest, participation, and achievement in STEM disciplines, particularly for underrepresented students. This concern comes at a moment when all students need preparation—either as critical consumers or innovative producers of STEM knowledge—for a global, interconnected world.

Engaged STEM Learning: From Promising to Pervasive Practices will support the efforts of STEM faculty, deans, department chairs, and their colleagues from across campus in making engaged STEM learning more mainstream and pervasive in both general education and STEM majors.

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Call for Proposals

Transformation of the national STEM learning landscape will require deliberate attention from all sectors of the academy, from community colleges to research universities, as well as the collective effort of all stakeholders, from students and faculty to academic and industry leaders. For the past 20 years, PKAL has worked with STEM faculty and academic leaders across the country to create models and practices that foster engaged STEM learning. Yet these advances are still not widely implemented in undergraduate STEM classrooms around the country. Compounding this issue is the very real concern about student interest, participation, and achievement in STEM disciplines, especially for underrepresented students.

The 2011 conference, Engaged STEM Learning: From Promising to Pervasive Practices, will focus on faculty and institutional leadership to adapt, scale up, and sustain effective practices in STEM teaching and learning. The conference is designed for participants who wish to develop institutional capacity for systematic STEM educational reform, broaden student participation and success in STEM fields, and better assess STEM learning in both general education and STEM majors.

We invite proposals focused on five key themes:

• Expanding the STEM Pipeline through Student Success
• Creating Integrative and Interdisciplinary STEM Environments
• Assessing STEM Learning
• Enhancing STEM Learning through Technology
• Scaling Up and Sustaining Pedagogies of Engagement

Across these themes, proposals are particularly encouraged that focus on faculty development; co-curricular and other strategic partnerships for engaged STEM learning and student success; community college models, including effective STEM transfer pathways; institutional change and leadership; and ways to finance effective STEM reform efforts.

The conference themes grow out of the significant work of PKAL members as well as conversation with STEM faculty and colleagues from AAC&U member campuses. This is an important opportunity to gather, share, and disseminate promising practices in engaged STEM learning and to facilitate widespread adaptation, scale up, and continuation in diverse institutional settings.

The questions that follow each theme are suggestive and are not meant to cover the full range of topics that can be proposed under each theme.

Submission Deadline Tuesday, August 31, 2010

• View Additional Information on the Call for Proposals for Network for Academic Renewal: Engaged STEM Learning -- From Promising to Pervasive Practices

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