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

30 results found

Understanding Passive Withdrawals on S111

Victoria Pearson Linda Moore Maria Velasco

In every presentation of S111, there has been a percentage of students who remain registered until the end of the module but have had limited or even no engagement with the module content and assessment.  In some cases, they may have never logged on to the VLE at all despite attempts from AL

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Assessment and Feedback on Introduction of Group Work on M140

Ruth Neal Kellee Patterson

The aim of this project is to assess the impact on M140 of introducing group work, gain feedback from students and tutors and learn from this experience before rolling this out to all students.

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Innovation in online student support

Cath Brown Sue Pawley

Due to the increasing popularity of the Data Science degree, MST224, Mathematical methods, student numbers have increased significantly. This has resulted in the employment of significant numbers of Associate Lecturers (ALs), and we would like to use the resultant increase

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A personal tutor scheme to enhance student retention and improve success

Victoria Brown Cath Brown

Student retention and continuation are key drivers for this project.

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Investigate the integration of vendor certifications within Computing modules

Amaninder Singh

Within many OU Computing modules and microcredentials, vendor certification content is partially integrated, or the modules are created solely based on the vendor qualifications (e.g., Cisco, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Education & Development Group (OpenEDG), EC-Council, Microsoft etc).

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Supporting the student’s learning journey through the transition of mathematics and statistics from level 2 to level 3

Alison Bromley Rachel Hilliam Gareth Williams Gaynor Arrowsmith Alex Siddons Sue Pawley

Mathematics and Statistics are linear subjects where success at higher levels depends on firm foundations, it is likened to a carpenter who is only capable of making a beautiful piece of furniture once they understand how a hammer and nail work.

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Evaluating the Programming for Physical Sciences website and forums on SM123 Physics and Space

Andy Diament Gemma Warriner

Students on SM123 Physics and space learn programming in Python across the module. Some find it straightforward, others very difficult.

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How do students use tutorial recordings and which formats are most effective?

Cath Brown Catherine Onions Claudi Thomas Katrine Rogers

Post-pandemic, students’ live attendance at online tutorials has declined significantly but it is not uncommon to see hundreds of views of recordings.

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Mathematics support in LHCS

Eleanor Crabb Nicola McIntyre Cath Brown Linda Moore

Science students need to develop a level of competence in mathematics to succeed in their studies.  However, Open University students in chemistry, biology and health sciences may well be unaware of the need for mathematical skills prior to embarking on their studies, and given the open entr

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Gamification to increase participation in maths practice quizzes in Level 1 Engineering modules

Silvia Varagnolo Zahra Golrokhi

The aim of this project is to improve students’ engagement with maths exercise through the gamification of existing practice quizzes. The specific context is T192 (the first module in the Engineering Qualification) which already features weekly maths practice quizzes.

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