InstructSTEM
Rooting Practice in Pedagogy
-
Teach Confidently
Ground your teaching strategies in research
-
Boost Learning Outcomes
Prepare students for the real-world
-
Improve Student Retention
Mitigate the growing STEM employment gap
Products & Services
InstructSTEM is an all-in-one e-learning and community of practice hub for STEM educators. We offer a comprehensive course on educational best practices and ways to implement them in your classroom, a community forum where you can engage in rich discussions around STEM education, and more so you can deliver exceptional instruction to your students.
-
STEM education is constantly evolving, and it is crucial for instructors to stay up to date with the latest educational best practices. Designed to help bridge the research-to-practice gap, InstructSTEM is a professional development course that provides a synthesized and accessible introduction to evidence-based pedagogical practices for high school and college STEM instructors. The modules will cover a range of topics in the learning sciences along with instructional practices, identifying learner characteristics, and course development. The pace and content will be tailored to the instructors’ prior knowledge, performance, and interests. For example, instructors will take assessments prior to and after engaging in learning activities for each topic, and the corresponding activities will be modified based on their performance. Instructors will also develop deliverables relevant to the STEM content area(s) they teach and receive feedback and guidance from their peers and course facilitators. This personalized and adaptive course has the potential to significantly improve STEM instruction by equipping instructors with the tools and knowledge needed to implement effective educational practices in their context and subsequently boost STEM student performance and retention.
-
We know you might have some questions about how to implement new techniques in your classroom or maybe you want to share what made you successful in doing so. Perhaps, you want to engage in discourse on general or more specific STEM education topics. The InstructSTEM Community of Practice allows instructors to give and receive feedback to and from their peers in the field and professional instructional designers and engage in rich discussions around a wide variety ofSTEM education topics.
-
Are you interested in learning about more STEM education topics or would you like to access to course resources to supplement your teaching? InstructSTEM’s Teaching Resources include short video trainings you can access on-the-go, blogs, lesson plan ideas, and instructional activity templates applicable to a wide range of STEM subjects.
-
Unlock your full teaching potential with personalized instructional design consultation! Designed to accelerate your success, our expert consultants collaborate with you to craft a course that excels in design and delivery. Our seasoned professionals, well-versed in educational best practices, will join forces with you, ensuring seamless implementation of course materials and strategies. By partnering with us, you'll effortlessly apply your newfound knowledge, witnessing faster student results and a more impactful learning experience. Elevate your course to greatness – let's design success together!
Course
The world of education is constantly evolving, with new research emerging every day. As an instructor, you're passionate about helping your students succeed. But staying up-to-date with the latest educational best practices can be challenging.
Are you ready to:
Overcome the challenge of finding time to stay updated on the latest educational research?
Address the pressure to ensure student success and positive evaluations?
Tackle the difficulty of creating engaging and relevant instructional materials?
Break free from the cycle of teaching the same way year after year?
Level up your teaching beyond current best practices?
Achieve your career goals in education?
If you've ever faced any of these challenges, you're not alone. Many instructors share these concerns. We're here to help you overcome these obstacles and transform your teaching. Discover innovative strategies to engage your students, enhance their learning experience, and improve student outcomes.
Community of Practice
Connect with a dynamic community of STEM subject-matter experts, instructional designers, and fellow educators.
Get Answers to Your Questions: Find quick solutions to your toughest STEM teaching challenges.
Share Your Expertise: Help others and earn valuable rewards.
Engage in Meaningful Discussions: Connect with like-minded educators and share insights.
Expand Your Network: Build relationships with instructors teaching similar subjects and age groups.
Get started today!
How can instructors benefit?
We asked over 100 high school and college STEM instructors how they could benefit from learning about the concepts in the InstructSTEM course and implementing them effectively in their course design and delivery.
They named increased student performance as the primary expected outcome from the course closely followed by improved presentation skills, self-efficacy, ease of resolving student misunderstandings, job fulfillment, and course evaluations.
“This type of training is imperative to the future of the students as well as the careers of the instructors.”
- Technical College Program Director, 2023
STEM Education Impacts
Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (or “STEM”) disciplines experience low student retention compared to other disciplines despite projections that estimate STEM employment opportunities to grow at double the rate of others. We can tie this gap directly back to students' classroom experience as lecture-style instruction remains the most used teaching method in STEM classrooms despite research that proves its limited positive impact on student learning outcomes.
This research often does not reach the instructors who teach STEM classes. These folks are subject-matter experts in things like chemistry and physics - not education! They don't have time to sift through all of the data, figure out what is useful for their content area, and design and deliver their courses accordingly.
What You Get
Exclusive content
Lessons, videos, interactive assignments, scenario-based activities, and workbooks to quickly get you up-to-speed on the most recent educational best practices.
Personalized activties
A course designed just for you. Navigate through the content in a way that aligns with your interests, prior knowledge, and performance.
Community of Practice
Private Community group where you can ask questions, share strategies, and engage in rich discussions around STEM education. All questions will be answered by a course moderator.
Comprehensive materials
Your time is valuable, so this course has been curated with information that is directly relevant to the STEM courses you teach so you still get comprehensive training in a fraction of the time.
Downloadable handbook
Enjoy access to course resources at your fingertips both during and after your course. Download the handbook that includes summarized course content and templates to support your instructional planning.
…and more!
In addition to its course and community platform, we will offer offer 1:1 instructional design consulting and other resources soon.
Get started today!
Course Overview
-
Learn how we learn in this introduction to the underpinning principles of educational psychology.
-
Learn how to efficiently and effectively design and deliver content that aligns with your instructional goals.
-
Learn strategies that you can integrate into your lesson plans and use on the spot in your classroom to deliver your instruction most effectively.
-
Learn about strategies you can use in your classroom that facilitate learning which you can also recommend to your students for independent use.
About Megan Byers
Megan Byers has over seven years of experience teaching STEM students at the high school and college levels as a tutor, Team-Approach to Student Learning (TASL) coach, supplemental instruction leader, and undergraduate teaching assistant for a variety of courses including calculus, chemistry, physics, engineering mechanics, differential equations, and more.
Megan holds a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from The University of North Carolina at Charlotte and is currently completing her M.A. in Educational Innovation, Technology, and Entrepreneurship at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Megan has previously worked in the industrial machine design, information technology, computational mechanics and materials research, and financial service spaces.
She has been inspired by many of her own instructors and hopes to help bridge the STEM education research-to-practice gap by making the research directly applicable and actionable for instructors so that they can continue to effectively and efficiently teach students.
We know you care how your information is used. We treat your information with care and respect. Review our privacy policy for more information.