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

106 results found

Making space for female engineering students: an evaluation of the effectiveness of a face-to-face Student Conference

Fiona Gleed

The Engineering profession offers intellectually and financially rewarding careers, with skills in high demand globally. However, women are significantly under-represented, with female students making up 18% of first year Engineering undergraduates in UK HE1.

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The STEM Good Tutor Guide

Chris Douce

It has been 20 years since the university published Supporting Open Learners: Reader, and the accompanying publication, Supporting Open Learners: Theoretical Reader for its tutors. These booklets offer practical guidance about many aspects of the role as a tutor.

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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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Gaining a deeper understanding of the experience and equitability of extensions and their impact on retention for Stage 1 Engineering students

Emma Champion

Previous scholarship has shown that students with extensions have poorer outcomes on modules and that extensions are used by a higher proportion of students within Equality, Diversity, Inclusion and Accessibility (EDIA) groups.

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Evaluating the outcomes of embedding coding activities in an advanced physics and astronomy module

Judith Croston

Two key barriers to student success in advanced physics and astronomy modules are (i) the abstract nature of key concepts that are far removed from everyday life, and (ii) the use of complex maths formalism that can obscure physical interpretation.

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

Cath Brown Catherine Onions

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

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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Supporting learning with a collaborative notetaking tool to work within a Jupyter Notebook environment

Oli Howson

At the moment M269 students work entirely within the Jupyter infrastructure. Notetaking is not built in to Jupyter, although a rudimentary plugin has been developed for students to do so.

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Improving completion of remote examinations in physics

Sally Jordan Jonathan Nylk Becca Whitehead

The project seeks to extend earlier investigations into the factors that enable students to do themselves justice in remote online exams in physics and related subjects, by encouraging them to attempt the exam in the first place and to complete a reasonable number of questions to an appropriate l

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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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