EAST LANSING ? Pulling all night cram sessions for multi-choice exams may become a thing of the past. The National Science Foundation has awarded Michigan State University a $5.7 million grant to develop a different approach for taking such tests in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, the so-called STEM fields.
The grant is broken into two parts with $5 million going towards the development of the website where a test question is no longer scored by a choice, but by the expressive words used by the students. The other portion of the grant will help professors train on how to leverage this innovation in the classroom.
A team of MSU researchers will use the grant to support the development of computerized testing tools. These technical tools will analyze students? written responses to homework, quiz and test questions in order to predict how scholastic experts would assess them. This model will be primarily developed and used for the typical, large enrollment STEM undergraduate courses. The goal is to increase retention and promote student success as demand for STEM graduates grows.
The program seeks to enhance the experience in STEM classes, as well as also address the incredible potential of teaching STEM classes in the online education market. MSU is now on the forefront of creating these changes.
?Students answering questions in their own words are the most meaningful way for instructors to identify learning obstacles,? said Mark Urban-Lurain, principle investigator for the $5 million grant and co-director of MSU?s Center for Engineering Education Research. ?The realities of typical large-enrollment undergraduate classes, however, restrict the options that faculty members have for evaluating students’ writing.?
After this program is fully developed, the faculty will be ready to give students a better learning experience with more targeted focus and hopefully more positive results. This new technique aims to gain more retention in these important STEM fields as MSU leads the way in changing the learning environment with technology tools.
It’s a perfect storm of growing success rates in STEM classes, while also putting MSU on the map with the development of this innovative technology. MSU Students will be able to look beyond limited choices in both the classroom and their future.
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