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The application of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) education in solving real-world problems is challenging. To tackle this challenge, a project-based learning approach that integrates robots with cost-effective self-made toys to problem-solving was adopted to assist rural primary school students to apply STEM skills. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of the project-based learning approach which includes lecturing and hands-on activities on primary school students' STEM learning outcomes and attitudes. An experiment was conducted with 25 primary school students who voluntarily participated in a STEM summer-camp programme. Students were asked to assemble a paper house equipped with an IoT control module and LED light switches, and write and edit robot scripts to produce a robot-based storytelling narrative using the paper house they made as a context. The results show that the project-based learning approach was an effective approach for cultivating primary school students' STEM knowledge and skills as evidenced from the post-written test. The relationships between the students' STEM learning outcomes and attitudes were also confirmed by a clustering analysis. Students who had higher learning attitudes also achieved higher STEM learning outcomes; the findings are also supported by the feedback from the open-ended questionnaire items. This study suggests that integrating low-cost self-made toys and robots in project-based learning activities is an effective and practical approach to enhance primary school students' learning outcomes and learning attitudes in STEM education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With constantly changing political landscapes affecting the ability of college students with minoritized identities of sexuality and/or gender (MIoSG; Vaccaro et al., 2015) to thrive on campus, higher educators need to understand student reported stressors to design more inclusive learning environments. Building from minority stress theory and using data from a grounded theory study with 56 collegiate STEM students with MIoSG, this paper documents stressors that students reported as contributing to diminished wellbeing. We used constant comparative grounded theory analysis to identify stressors shared by all participants, which included lack of belonging and invisibility in competitive STEM cultures as well as exclusionary interactions with STEM peers. Recommendations include the design and delivery of holistic education and support services on campus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The substantial growth in gamification research has connected gamified learning to enhanced engagement, improved performance, and greater motivation. Similar to gamification, personalized learning analytics dashboards can enhance student engagement. Objectives: This study explores the student experiences and academic achievements using a gamified dashboard in a large, introductory STEM course. Methods: We examined two groups of students enrolled in different sections of a one‐semester‐long physical geology course with a total enrollment of 223 students. The only difference between the groups was that one had access to the dashboard. The data collection included students' assignments, overall performances, and exam scores. Students in both sections completed a Science Literacy Concept Inventory survey at the beginning and end of the term. Additionally, students completed an end‐of‐term survey containing open‐ended questions on their experience and interactions with specific elements. Results: Students shared mostly positive comments about their experience with the dashboard, and the final grade of students with access to the dashboard was 13% higher, on average, compared to their peers in the non‐dashboard section. Conclusion: With low costs and little time invested, gamified dashboards could have a significant impact on student performance in large STEM lecture courses. Lay Description: What is already known about this topic: Leaner dashboards that provide personalized feedback are linked to improved student performance in undergraduate STEM courses. However, students may be reticent to adopt dashboards, especially students in the middle range of the performance distribution, for whom the impact of the dashboard may be most significant.Prior research on gamification in STEM courses suggests that adding gameful elements like progress trackers, badges, and rewards can increase students' engagement in undergraduate coursework.The combination of personalized learning in dashboards and the motivational experience of gamification should boost student engagement, dashboard adoption, and ultimately foster academic achievement. What this paper adds: In this paper, we examine the differences in academic performance between students with and without access to a gamified learning dashboard in an undergraduate Geology course.We observe that students with access to the dashboard (the treatment group), outperform students without access (the control group). The greatest benefit is observed for students who use the dashboard more frequently.Students reported that the progress tracker, the badges, and the rewards all incentivized their use and provided useful feedback about their performance. Students who did not adopt the dashboard expressed a need for more detail about the tool and its purpose. Implications for practice and/or policy: Instructors and instructional designers for large enrollment undergraduate STEM courses should consider the affordances of gamified learner dashboards for increasing engagement and for providing synchronous feedback about learners' strategies in the course.Aligning the dashboard to the content of the curriculum—by ensuring that badges reflect key concepts‐ encouraged participation and helped students identify the utility of the tool. Dashboards should be personalized to individuals and to the course.Adding gameful elements in a low‐cost intervention for increasing adoption and engagement of dashboards in large enrollment introductory courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is the best approach to educating students is, evidently, the pivotal question in educational research. In the general debate on this question, clear positions are often taken―for example, whether teacher‐led instruction or more student‐directed approaches should be followed. In the current narrative review, this central question and the different stances taken are explored for a specific field of learning, STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) domains. The current article starts with an argument as to why the traditional, more directive teacher‐led educational approach to STEM learning may not always lead to deep conceptual knowledge and proposes exploring more engaged forms of learning. More specifically, a particular arrangement for engaged learning, inquiry learning, is taken as an example in this exploration. It is argued that the effects of educational methods are influenced by a multitude of (interacting) factors related to student and teacher characteristics, context, domain, frequency of use, timing, and probably more. Therefore, this article tries to outline a more nuanced and balanced stance towards choosing educational approaches. A picture is presented to show that adopting and combining different approaches, at both the lesson and the curricular levels, may be necessary to reach optimal levels of learning. Existing and upcoming technologies may play a decisive role in realizing this more complex, but also more realistic view of learning in STEM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education is recognized as a top school education priority worldwide and Inquiry-based teaching and learning is identified as a promising approach. To effectively engage students in Inquiry tasks, appropriate guidance should be provided, usually by combining digital tools such online labs and modeling tools. This is a cumbersome task for teachers, since it involves manually assessing the type/level of tool-supported guidance to be provided and potentially refining these to meet guidance needs of individual students. In our research we target to investigate how to support this systematic reflection process with educational data analytics methods and tools from both the design and the delivery of Inquiry-based educational designs (IED). The contribution of this paper is to propose a novel "Teaching and Learning" Analytics method and research prototype tool, extending the scope of purely learning analytics methods, to analyze IED in terms of the tool-supported guidance they offer and relate these analyses to students' educational data that are already being collected by existing learning analytics systems, increasing teachers' awareness. A two-layer evaluation methodology positively assessed the capacity of our method to analyze IED and provided initial evidence that the insights generated offer statistically significant indicators that impact students' activity during the delivery of these IED. The insights of this work aim to contribute in the field of cognitive data analytics for teaching and learning, by investigating new ways to combine analyses of the educational design and students' activity, and inform teachers' reflection from a holistic perspective. Highlights • Tool-supported Guidance is essential for effective Inquiry-based education. • Teaching and Learning Analytics (TLA) can support teachers provide appropriate Guidance. • The TLA method and supporting tool provides analyses of the level of Guidance in Inquiry-based scenarios. • Analyses of the design can be investigated against customizable learners' data and profiles. • Insights from these combined analyses could help teachers improve their teaching designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Girls' uptake of physical science, technology, engineering and mathematics (PSTEM) degrees continues to be poor. Identifying and targeting interventions for girl groups that are likely to go into STEM degrees may be a possible solution. This paper, using a self-determination theory and self-socialisation framework, determines whether one girl group's, "geek girls", video gaming behaviour is associated with their choice of undergraduate degree by using two secondary datasets: a cross-sectional study of the Net Generation (n = 814) and the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE) dataset (n = 7342). Chi-square analysis shows that girls who were currently studying a PSTEM degree were more likely to be gamers and engage in multiplayer gamers. Further, using logistic regressions, girls who were heavy gamers (>9 h/wk) at 13–14 years were found to be more likely to pursue a PSTEM degree but this was influenced by their socio-economic status. Similar associations with boys and PSTEM degrees were not found or were weak. Therefore, girls were self-socialising or self-determining their identity groups through gaming. This research can provide the basis for whether encouraging gaming in adolescent girls can help them onto PSTEM pathways. Highlights • Girls who are heavy gamers are more likely to study a physical STEM degree. • Playing multiplayer games is associated with studying a physical STEM degree. • The studying of physical STEM degrees is dependent on level of social deprivation. • Girls are 58 times less likely to do a physical STEM degree than no degree at all. • Levels of participation in video gaming can change for girls over a year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]