eSTEeM

Centre for Scholarship and Innovation

Conference delegates working in groups

Projects

eSTEeM is providing a mechanism for professional development through practice-based scholarship within a mentored community. Much of our work is organised on a project basis with project management aimed at the delivery of new educational outcomes and scholarship outputs. 

eSTEeM supports a rolling portfolio of approx. 80 active scholarship projects under a number of themes which include:

  • Access, Participation and Success
  • Innovative assessment
  • Online/onscreen STEM practice
  • Supporting students
  • Technologies for STEM learning

To learn more about our projects, please click on the project titles or use the search feature below by entering keywords. To search by the name of a project leader, please use the 'Filter by Project Leader' tab on the right-hand side of this page.

Search results

215 results found

Typical Support Seeking Behaviour of STEM Students, their Outcomes and Successes

Paul Collier Fiona Aiken

The importance of personal, non-academic support of students especially in a distance learning environment is well documented in the literature.

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Impact of introducing new practical and dataset project options to the science undergraduate capstone project module (S390)

Hannah Gauci Julie Robson Jon Golding Janette Wallace

S390 is the undergraduate science capstone project module.

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Black student experience and attainment on S112: improving a level 1 STEM module

Louise MacBrayne Jennie Bellamy

Highly Commended - eSTEeM Scholarship Projects of the Year Awards 2024.

Winner - Best Poster Competition, 12th eSTEeM Annual Conference 2023.

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An evaluation of use and impact of zero grades in assessment; are we being consistent, fair, and transparent?

Karen New Fiona Moorman

Project context

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Evaluating the Impact of Implementing Learning Design Approaches in STEM over 4 Years

Tom Olney

In 2016, the OU was restructured into four super-faculties (STEM, WELS, FASS & FBL). Amongst many other things, each faculty was tasked with developing structures, governance and procedures that would support module teams in designing teaching and learning appropriate to their context.

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Online peer mentoring at scale: Benefits and impacts from a student buddy perspective

Julie Robson Chris Hutton

The benefits of peer mentoring for students studying in Higher Education are well established and have been demonstrated in online, blended and hybrid settings. Best practice in establishing financially sustainable schemes in online settings at a large scale is under researched.

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Embedding research into teaching: practices, motivations and impacts

Sarah Davies

Academics are often interested in using their own research in their teaching – this can be a valuable way of sharing their passion for their subject, connecting students with cutting edge research knowledge, and enabling students to experience authentic science practices.

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Early Start for TM470 project students

Christine Gardner

Students on IT/computing degrees at the Open University (OU) complete a compulsory project at the end of their studies (TM470), yet some students face challenges completing the project due to difficulties with independent work. The prompt for this study was students’ poor performance on TM47

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Pair marking: Working together to improve our teaching

Nigel Gibson Kate Sim

This project aims to investigate using dynamically shared marking documents to support new tutors. In the process it will also provide this group some additional mentoring, and it allow experienced tutors to reflect on their own work and to share and develop good practice.

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Understanding the impact of COVID-19 on ethnic minority students’ study experience and awarding gap (A case study of Level 1 C&C Open University Modules)

Dhouha Kbaier Soraya Kouadri Mostéfaoui Annemarie Kane

This report explores the broader impact of COVID-19 on the learning experiences and academic performance of ethnic minority students, using Open University (OU) Level 1 Computing modules as a case study.

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