{"id":3708,"date":"2016-12-15T15:08:46","date_gmt":"2016-12-15T20:08:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/?p=3708"},"modified":"2017-12-20T11:56:45","modified_gmt":"2017-12-20T16:56:45","slug":"professors-collaborate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/2016\/12\/15\/professors-collaborate\/","title":{"rendered":"Professors Collaborate on STEM Pedagogy Research Project"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_3710\" style=\"width: 655px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3710\" class=\"wp-image-3710\" src=\"\/\/emu.edu\/now\/is\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/54\/2016\/12\/20161005-Intro-to-Engineering-027-Edit-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"20161005-intro-to-engineering-027-edit\" width=\"645\" height=\"430\" srcset=\"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/54\/2016\/12\/20161005-Intro-to-Engineering-027-Edit-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/54\/2016\/12\/20161005-Intro-to-Engineering-027-Edit-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/54\/2016\/12\/20161005-Intro-to-Engineering-027-Edit-658x439.jpg 658w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 645px) 100vw, 645px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-3710\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Eastern Mennonite University students Enock Samalenge (left) and Dirk Oyer work with Professor Esther Tian on a project in Tian&#8217;s &#8220;Introduction to Engineering and Design&#8221; course. (Photo by Andrew Strack)<\/p><\/div>\n<p class=\"p1\"><strong>IN A 2014 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN BLOG\u00a0<\/strong><span class=\"s1\"><b>POST<\/b><\/span><span class=\"s2\">,<\/span> <span class=\"s2\">Dr.\u00a0<\/span>Kenneth Gibbs <span class=\"s2\">Jr. <\/span>writes that <span class=\"s2\">\u201cthe <\/span>large and persistent under-representation of certain social groups from the enterprise represents the loss of talent\u201d and concluded that \u201cdiversity leads to better problem-solving, expands the talent pool and is important for long-term economic growth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\">For those who share that <span class=\"s2\">view, <\/span>the good news is that students enrolling in university science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programs are increasingly diverse. At the same time, a poor retention rate among this group is prompting STEM educators to explore different ways to better meet the needs of a changing student<span class=\"s2\"> body.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\">EMU is no exception. Over the next three years, the university will work to improve its retention rate of minority students in STEM programs, using a recently awarded $300,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to improve instructional techniques in the classroom and laboratory.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p5\">\u201c[These students] often have to adapt to an academic culture and a university culture that their parents <span class=\"s2\">couldn\u2019t <\/span>introduce them to, and on top of that, the STEM culture. <span class=\"s2\">It\u2019s <\/span>like going to a foreign country three times <span class=\"s2\">over,\u201d <\/span>said <b>Stephen Cessna<\/b>, professor of biochemistry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p6\">In addition to STEM <span class=\"s2\">faculty, EMU\u2019s <\/span>education department and the multicultural services office will also participate. The grant includes faculty trainings on bias and teaching methods, a mentoring program for STEM <span class=\"s2\">faculty, <\/span>and improvement of a peer tutoring program for minority and first-generation college students in STEM majors. EMU will share its findings and conclusions with STEM departments of other universities experiencing similar enrollment trends and challenges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>IN A 2014 SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN BLOG\u00a0POST, Dr.\u00a0Kenneth Gibbs Jr. writes that \u201cthe large and persistent under-representation of certain social groups from the enterprise represents the loss of talent\u201d and concluded that \u201cdiversity leads to better problem-solving, expands the talent pool and is important for long-term economic growth.\u201d For those who share that view, the good [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":242,"featured_media":3710,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[916,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-winter-2016-17","category-magazine","issues-current-issue","issues-fall-winter-2016-17"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/242"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3708"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3733,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3708\/revisions\/3733"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3710"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/emu.edu\/now\/crossroads\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}