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CU campuses awarded $3.6M to further STEM education
The National Science Foundation on Wednesday awarded a pair of grants totaling $3.6 million to the University of Colorado’s Boulder and Denver campuses meant to expand their Learning Assistants Programs and ultimately increase student engagement in STEM.
Learning assistants, students enrolled in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) classes, will take seminars exploring what types of hands-on learning work best for engaging students in the classroom. Research shows that active learning increases student engagement and performance in STEM subjects.
The learning assistants will then put the theories demonstrated in the seminars in action as assistants to the professors in college classrooms for STEM subjects.
Bud Talbot, CU Denver principal investigator and assistant professor of science education in the School of Education & Human Development, said the grants will help aid in conducting a large-scale study about exactly what types of active learning helps students best.
“We’re trying to learn the best way to ensure student success,” Talbot said. “It becomes a much more flexible, interactive environment.”
Talbot said the grants are especially useful in helping learning assistants learn better ways to interact on a peer-to-peer level with students.
“Learning Assistants don’t grade student work — they can’t be seen as a teacher — they have to be seen as a peer. That way the students trust them … they can be more honest,” Talbot said.