15 years of growing the eSTEeM community

On the 29th and 30th April, eSTEeM hosted its 15th annual conference, which took place both in person and online. Over 150 colleagues gathered from across STEM and other units/faculties within the OU to mark this important milestone and immerse themselves in two days of innovative scholarship work. The event was an opportunity for colleagues to reflect on their own scholarship journeys whilst looking forward and exploring future directions of STEM SoTL at the OU and more widely.

Now in its 9th year, we were delighted to present the eSTEeM Scholarship Projects of the Year Awards, which celebrate excellence in eSTEeM projects over the past year. Many congratulations to the following project teams –

Highly Commended: 
Title: Exploring the impact of virtual reality on engagement and accessibility of tutorials for students studying S296
Team: Sarah Daniell, Lorraine Waters, Katja Rietdorf, Heather Fraser, Patrizia Paci and Seth Racey

Title: An investigation into the progression of OU STEM students from taught courses to postgraduate research
Team: Alice Fraser-McDonald, Sally Jordan, David Sharp and Teresa Sides

Winners:
Title: Evaluating an LGBTQ+ awarding gap and supporting our queer student community: An intersectional perspective (Phase 1)
Team: Willow Neal, Emmanuel Zuza, Kat Gauld, Elaine McPherson, Chris Hutton and Ellesar Elhaggagi

Title: Postcode Inequity: Closing the Awarding Gap for Stage 1 STEM Students residing in our most deprived UK postcodes
Team: Louise MacBrayne, Jennie Bellamy, Isabella Henman and Kate Gibson

Best Poster Presentation

Congratulations to the winners of the best poster presentation prize, which went to Zoë Chapman and Janette Wallace for their poster titled Do Co-Created Digital Assets Contribute to Students' Sense of Belonging in LHCS?

Most Engaging and Immersive Presentations/Workshops

For the 2nd year conference delegates were also invited to vote for the most engaging and immersive presentations/workshops across the two days. Congratulations to the winners as follows –

Day One, Parallel Session A: Interactive Oral Presentations - Evaluating the effectiveness and student experience of using plug-in tablets as part of robust online assessment. Presenters – Becca Whitehead and Gemma Warriner

Day Two, Parallel Session I: Workshops/Demonstrations - Decolonising Computing: Practical Steps for Inclusive Curriculum and Pedagogy. Presenters - Zoe Tompkins, Amaninder Singh, Kate Feliciello, Brent Cunningham and Andrew Smith.

Please visit the conference website to view copies of the PowerPoint presentations and watch recordings of the sessions.

Many thanks again to everyone who attended, presented and assisted. We hope that the event has inspired you to collaborate and try new practices and innovations that will contribute to impactful scholarship.