Online/onscreen STEM practice

Online practical work is now established across the OU STEM curriculum, in many modules and programmes.

The covid-19 pandemic has resulted in losses in opportunities for students to gain experience at summer placements in research and industrial laboratories.

Existing studies about the design of the Virtual Microscope (VM) detail the technical specifications of the microscope such as improving the client response time when requesting an image and portability across computer platforms (Çatalyürek et al., 2003; Fereira et al., 1997) and report on develo

Within many STEM modules we have moved to an online platform for learning events, including tuition.  Whilst there are many benefits to online tuition by both tutors and students (such as remote access) anecdotal evidence suggests that STEM OU students do not actively participate in online t

Hands-on practical activities can improve students understanding of technological concepts and provide an opportunity to improve their technical skills.

Winner of the 3rd eSTEeM Scholarship Projects of the Year Award 2020 under the category - Innovative/Original Approach to Teaching.

Highly Commended at the 4th eSTEeM Scholarship Projects of the Year Awards 2021 under the category - Innovative Approach to Teaching.

Aims: By taking a comparative approach between three online team investigations in planetary science and astronomy, this project aims to investigate the factors that may be important in determining the effectiveness of such activities. The areas for investigation will be:

Understanding students’ preferences and habits about digital reading is fundamental to support paperless learning.

This project captured and identified the practice of tutorial observations from two different perspectives: the perspective of the distance learning tutor, and the perspective of their manager or staff tutor.