What a great opportunity for students to build additional skills during these workshops. I love that you provided workshops that were open to various STEM faculty. What a great project! 

Welcome! Thank you for checking out the Adapting an Experiment-centric Teaching Approach to Increase Student Achievement in Multiple STEM Disciplines (ETA-STEM) Project. The project aims to promote motivation and academic achievement of students in Multiple STEM Disciplines at Morgan State University. The Experiment Centric Pedagogy (ECP) uses an inexpensive, safe, and portable electronic instrumentation system that can be used in classrooms, student laboratories and at home.

So far in the project, ECP has been adapted and implemented, in seven STEM disciplines: Biology, Chemistry, Civil Engineering, Computer Science, Industrial Engineering, Physics and Transportation System. The project has impacted more than 1,000 STEM students, a considerable proportion of whom are from groups historically underrepresented in STEM. The project is presently at its third year.

Our video explains the impact of ECP in STEM learning. Incorporating ECP into STEM curriculum has shown to improve motivation, enthusiasm and learning amongst students. We hope that you enjoy this 3-minute video, we will be more than happy to answer your questions regarding ECP, and the STEM curriculum at Morgan State University. Feel free to ask all your questions.

 You can also visit our project website

Please enjoy.

We are happy to have you watch our video, which showcases in 3 minutes the impact of ECP in the STEM program.

Briefly, 

Experimeny-Centric Pedagogy (ECP) is an active, hands-on pedagogical approach that focuses on educating the student beyond the classroom theoretical approach. The ECP enables students to see and interact with the outcome of their theoretical understanding of a particular course, thus activating their innovative minds and preparing them for real-world problems.

Great project! Our undergrad experiments program also uses a team approach and we're always trying to think of the best ways to create teams.

How are teams formed in your program, and what pros and cons do you see to your team formation approach?

 Thanks all for your video and your project. The preliminary outcomes and findings seem encouraging with respect to impact. 

I'm curious: what are some of the implementation challenges you've faced trying to phase in ECP at your institution and how have you addressed them? You mention some faculty workshops-how are those going and what plans do you have to support broader implementation moving forward? 

Finally, what were some of the experiments that students were doing at home with their families (mentioned around the 2.50 mark of the video)? It's encouraging that students were taking what they learned from the classroom and teaching their family members. 

Experimentation is always a winner for hands-on, experiential learning. The team-based approach is also great. Kudos to the team. I voted!

Good job! It's always better to learn Engineering and Sciences through Experimentation. 

ECP's idea of low-cost experiments is commendable as it provides opportunities for many students from BIPOC students and schools. How are the low-cost experiments decided? How do other schools have access to these materials? What are some of the ways you have measured improvements, specifically BIPOC students' skills and understanding of STEM skills and processes? How is an experiment made culturally appropriate or connected? 

Thank you Prof. Bhaskar. Our team has been able to purchase various ECP kits at a very low rate, which the students can afford at their convenience. Such example was seen in ECP Physics laboratory experiments, where resistors, mini loudspeakers, Adalm M1k device, to mention a few, were used to carry out various experiments in the laboratory as well as at their respective homes. These kits are cost effective and from the outcome of our result, we could say students acquired more with the ECP experiment compared to non ECP. 

However, we measure improvements by simply comparing Non ECP classes to ECP classes and various simulations were done, which shows that at the end of each class, students were motivated and acquired more knowledge in ECP hands-on experiment classes.

Thank you.

Thanks for this critical work. Project-based learning that can be employed across multiple disciplines to actively engage students has a potential that is limitless and can extend to educational and career opportunities that will support a diverse pool of students to address national and global challenges.