How can universities help to engage with STEM? Is it to get undergraduate or postgraduate students to lead, or should it be the staff? Where there is limited money to do these activities, is it best to concentrate efforts on to a small group of people or wider more general activities?
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Hi Scott,
I encourage you to have a look at the following presentation by Professor Croft at the recent STEM2014 conference. It particularly concerns engagement of women in STEM but much of the talk applies equally to both genders. Hope this helps. Kevin
http://stem2014.ubc.ca/files/2013/09/The-Next-Generation-of-Women-in-STEM-v2.pdf
Hey, you might find this helpful. Encouraging students as early as possible seems to have an immense effect on their future engagement. Programs like NYC-LSAMP are great for that purpose. I also attached a recent Power Point show that you might find useful (and a link to LSAMP; actually, their website is being updated, - I an tell you that I have worked with two LSAMP students, one of whom is now at Carnegie Mellon, and the other is at the Grove School of Engineering ).
http://www.nyc-alliance.com/Impact%20Report.pdf
I have worked with educational robots for the last 30 years. They are extremely effective at delivering STEM from pre-school and in reality even to 6th form (though teachers of older students tend not to take advantage of the technology). When properly used they can provide a STEM aspect to any subject. For example, history, geography and I have even known a group use them in religious education. They do not necessarily require the teacher to have great STEM skills, particularly with younger students. The reason for this is that they provide concrete experiences of concepts that students engage through active learning. The teachers literally can learn "on the job". What they do require is a talented or at least a well trained teacher.
I have been teaching for a STEM program for five years whose goal is to develop STEM skills for low-income and first-generation college students. Four or five times a year, we host programs at the University to bring our students to campus for things they are naturally interested in for whatever reason (sports, animals, you name it) and use that as an opportunity to show how the different aspects of STEM impact these things that the students are interested in but may not actually make the connection to. I have done two lectures for that program based on this philosophy: The Math and Physics of Hockey and I am about to do a lecture on the Mechanics of a Horse Leg, motivating presenting work that we have done at the University in the protection of horses based on track design. So my big recommendation for engaging in STEM in a low cost manner is to creatively use the resources you already have. It can be done. If you are looking at engaging any group, this still can be effective. Some people just simply are not aware of the interoperability of STEM fields to literally everything.
An interesting piece here: https://www.teachwire.net/news/want-to-engage-young-people-in-stem-subjects-you-need-to-start-getting-pers
But it does approach the subject from a certain perspective
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