IMPROVING UNDERGRADUATE STEM TEACHING AND LEARNING: THE EXPERIENCE OF THE AAU UNDERGRADUATE STEM EDUCATION INITIATIVE

The AAU is in the middle of a five-year initiative in collaboration with member institutions to improve undergraduate teaching and learning in STEM fields. The overall objective of the initiative is to influence the culture of STEM departments at AAU institutions so that faculty members are encouraged and supported to use teaching practices proven by research to be more effective in engaging students in STEM education and in helping students learn. The goals of AAU’s STEM Initiative are to:

1.Develop a Framework for Systemic Change to Undergraduate STEM Teaching and Learning for assessing and improving the quality of STEM teaching and learning, 


2.Support AAU STEM project sites at a subset of AAU universities to implement the framework, and develop a broader network of AAU universities committed to implementing STEM teaching and learning reforms, 


3.Explore mechanisms that institutions and departments can use to train, recognize, and reward faculty members who want to improve the quality of their STEM teaching; 


4.Work with federal funding agencies to develop mechanisms for recognizing, rewarding, and promoting efforts to improve undergraduate learning, and 


5.Develop effective means for sharing information about promising and effective undergraduate STEM education programs, approaches, methods, and pedagogies.