At the 2022 Original Lilly Conference, Drake Institute AffiliateNicholas Denton, Ph.D., and Amy Kulesza, Ph.D., demonstrated that lab courses encouraging inquiry-based student learning and team-based learning enhanced undergraduate students' motivations to persistent in STEM, including sense of science identity, STEM community, project ownership, and networking.
"In particular, students reported that more opportunities to overcome challenges through collaboration and greater appreciation for the societal impact of their lab work made them feel more like a scientist under this inquiry-team-based learning lab design," Denton says.
Denton and Kuleza challenged educators in the attendance to think of how inquiry-team-based learning could help alleviate existing barriers to learning, like COVID-19, opportunity gaps, and stresses in health, finance, and living environment.
Identifying student learning barriers in traditional STEM lab courses and addressing them through an inquiry-team-based learning approach makes it possible to improve student persistence in the STEM discipline.
For more information about inquiry-team-based learning, contact: Denton.58@osu.edu.