NASA expands STEM efforts with internship

Grant will support students from across the country as they perform research, increase STEM skills

nasa-stemThe Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin has received a five-year, $1.3 million grant from NASA that will support the national expansion of a STEM program that gives high school students and teachers the opportunity to use NASA resources and work directly with engineers at UT Austin’s Center for Space Research (CSR).

The grant will support students from across the country to perform research; increase their skills in science, technology, engineering and math; and learn valuable lessons about earth systems from NASA’s fleet of satellites.

Established in 2010 at CSR with funding from NASA Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Science (ROSES) and the Texas Space Grant Consortium, the program has served about 12 students and three teachers each summer since its inception. The new funding will allow CSR to expand the program to 250 students and teachers each summer, grow the student internship program held at CSR and launch a new online earth science high school program.…Read More

Skills Pipeline initiative expands in La.

Louisiana students enter Skills Pipeline program and take accelerated one-year curriculum

skills-pipelinePraxair, Inc. has announced it will continue to support a Skills Pipeline program in 2016 through the Louisiana Community and Technical College System (LCTCS).

Nearly 100 welding students are graduating from the first year of the company’s program in Louisiana.

Skills Pipeline, funded by Praxair’s Global Giving Program, provided more than $300,000 to train approximately 100 new welders in an accelerated one-year curriculum through Baton Rouge Community College, Delgado Community College and SOWELA Technical Community College. With the newly announced second phase in Louisiana, Praxair will have provided more than $500,000 to create a talented pipeline of welders in the state.…Read More

Campaign aims to graduate 10,000 black engineers

Initiative aims to increase number of black engineers in the workforce and in professional organizations

black-engineersOnly 19 percent of black 4th graders in the U.S. and 13 percent of the nation’s black 8th graders were proficient in math in 2015, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Only 5.5 percent of black 8th graders in the U.S. in 2005 completed calculus five years later, and a mere 1.1 percent of the nation’s black college freshmen enrolled in engineering programs in 2010, according to a recent analysis conducted by the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE).

And then there’s this fact from the American Society for Engineering Education: the percentage of African Americans among U.S. engineering bachelor’s degree recipients has been declining for more than a decade and was only 3.5 percent in 2014.…Read More

Study asks: Can math teachers teach coding?

An NSF study will examine how computer science shortages can best be addressed.

computer-scienceHow do students and teachers learn math and computer science, and how can we ease the coming shortage of computer science teachers? Worcester Polytechnic Institute will partner with Brown University and Bootstrap to examine those questions.

A team of computing education experts will study how students—and teachers—learn mathematics and computer science, and how those ways of learning can influence each other.

The study, funded by a National Science Foundation grant of nearly $1.5 million, is of critical importance as middle schools and high schools across the country look to integrate computer science into their curricula, while at the same time grappling with a projected shortage of computer science teachers.…Read More

MSU initiative targets research advancement

Global Impact initiative will strengthen STEM education and research, including cybersecurity and engineering.

research-msuMichigan State University will accelerate key research areas through the recruitment of 100 new faculty members as part of the newly launched Global Impact Initiative.

The Global Impact Initiative will bolster areas in which MSU already has a strong foundation, such as plant science, engineering, physical science and STEM education, while expanding research in genomics, cybersecurity, computational science and precision medicine. The priority research areas were developed from nearly 90 proposals submitted by MSU faculty members. Those areas are discussed at http://research.msu.edu/global-impact/.

“This bold investment by the Board of Trustees will pay huge dividends by growing MSU’s capacity for cutting-edge research,” said MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon. “Targeting emerging areas of scholarship will leverage Michigan State’s considerable strengths and enhance our reputation as a top-100 world research university.”…Read More

Engineering challenge launches across globe

Elsevier’s annual Knovel Academic Challenge invites engineering students and educators to participate.

engineering-challengeElsevier, a provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, has launched the 10th Knovel Academic Challenge; engineering students from across the globe can now sign up to register and compete for weekly prizes.

The annual global five-week game gives engineering professors, instructors and librarians the chance to integrate real-life engineering and science practices into their STEM communities while immersing students in a professional problem-solving environment – inside or outside the classroom. Once registering, the free game is accessible from the Challenge site, www.knovelac.com, for students to play and faculty to see who from their community is participating.

Throughout the challenge, Knovel’s engineering decision-support solutions and tools are accessible for all those taking part in the challenge. Based on participant performance and involvement, weekly prizes will be granted to the winning students and institutions.…Read More

Stanford invests in mobile math tutoring

Math tutoring platform offers varied subscription model and mark-up tool designed to empower students.

math-tutoringStanford University is investing in MathCrunch, an on-demand mobile math tutoring company, with its StartX Fund.

MathCrunch will use the investment to enhance the quality of tutoring sessions on its platform, add more advanced product features and grow its fleet of tutors to accommodate its rapid growth.

The company is focused on helping students gain the confidence and skills they need to succeed at math by providing one‐on‐one live tutoring to students via chat on their mobile phones — 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. In its first year alone, MathCrunch surpassed 100,000 student sign‐ups and completed over 200,000 successful math-tutoring sessions.…Read More

Study: Flipped science class helps women, those with lower GPA

Study analyzes how flipped classrooms can benefit student groups.

flipped-scienceTaking a flipped approach to science instruction could help women and students with lower GPAs score higher on exams, according to a new study.

Physical chemistry students who were given most course content outside of the classroom scored 12 percent higher on exams than their peers in more traditional classes where students listened to lectures, a new study by researchers at the Yale Center for Teaching and Learning and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst (U-Mass) shows.

Female students and those with lower grade-point averages benefitted most from the flipped classroom approach, in which class time is dedicated to interactive learning projects, according to the study appearing online September 22 in the journal CBE-Life Sciences Education.…Read More

An educator’s guide to trying maker ed learning

With maker education, educators need to emphasize a student’s independent learning; bolster applied theories through invention.

maker-education-learningGive practical context, allow for failure, and for heaven’s sake, get out of the way!

These were just some of the main takeaways in a recent edWeb webinar, “Re-inventing the Wheel: A Fresh Look at Maker Ed.” Presenter Steve Kurti, CEO and Chief Maker for Table Top Inventing, provided tips on this increasingly popular movement to help faculty gain a better understanding of the maker education concept, as well as present the best strategies for helping students to become “makers.”

A Brief History…Read More

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