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

189 results found

The Use of Learning Analytics in STEM over 4 years

Tom Olney Carlton Wood

Learning analytics is a rapidly expanding area of interest for many higher education institutions.

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Enrichment workshops to enhance student engagement and employability

Janet Haresnape Ruth Gilbert Heather Fraser Hanne Bown David Ruiz Hannah Gandy

The aim of this project was to evaluate the programme of enrichment workshops which had been offered to biology and health sciences students in the School of Life, Health and Chemical sciences at the Open University during the summer months in 2022 and 2023.  The aims of the enrichment works

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Haptic thinking; identifying haptic tooling interventions for an online design course

Lisa Bowers

Highly Commended at the 1st eSTEeM Scholarship Projects of the Year Awards 2018 under the category – Innovative/Original Approach to Teaching.

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Building a sense of community in a core 2nd level Physics module (S217) and investigating qualitatively its effect on retention

Anne-Katrin Klehe

The OU has a broad intake of students from a very wide breadth of educational backgrounds. Most students study part time, mostly up to 60 credits per year while at the same time working full time, looking after a family and/or caring for someone.

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Which factors are correlated with undergraduate engineering distance learning students’ expectations of ethical issues?

Joanna Sessford

Ethics is becoming an increasingly important part of engineering curriculum. Engineers need to be able to recognise and make ethical decisions in their working life. This is essential for a number of different reasons including to avoid potentially life taking disasters. 

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Improving retention through small interventions: The U101 postcard project

Theodora Philcox Elouise Huxor

This project aims to improve student retention on U101, Design thinking. U101 is a gateway Level 1 design module and part of Q61 in Engineering and Innovation (E&I).

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How should formative assessments be assessed? A study of S217 online quizzes

Jonathan Nylk Andy Diament

The aim of this project is to evaluate the level of student engagement with the online quizzes on S217 Physics: from Classical to Quantum, comparing the current model of assessment with a formative thresholded assessment model which has been shown to have a marked positive impact on stud

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Ecoanxiety and environmental education: stories, conversations, actions

Sarah Davies

Ecoanxiety – the distress related to climate and ecological crises – is increasingly recognised in learners by educators (Hickman et al, 2021), in the media (e.g., BBC Ideas 2021, Rannard, 2022) as well as through programmes of advice and education (e.g., Wright, 2022).

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Recruiting tutors to specialist modules in the School of Computing and Communications at the Open University

David McDade

Highly Commended at the 8th eSTEeM Scholarship Projects of the Year Awards 2025.

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Team Based Learning tutorials in S248

Kate Nixon Nick Chatterton

This project seeks to improve student engagement in tutorials in S248 Chemistry in life: food, water and medicines.

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