STEAM Mission Statement

Success through Transformative Education and Active Mentoring (STEAM) is a First in the World (FITW) grant project, funded by the United States Department of Education. As FITW grantees, we have been charged with researching and testing strategies for bringing post-secondary education in the United States back to being First in the World. Grant number: P116F140459.

Project Overview

Our project at Purdue University, STEAM, is a study based on our successful course-transformation program Instruction Matters: Purdue Academic Course Transformation (IMPACT). Through the use of experimental and control sections, we aim to empirically demonstrate that a more student-centered learning environment leads to benefits such as greater learning, higher grades, and higher rates of student retention in the major and the university.

If you would like to learn more about STEAM and the work we are accomplishing at Purdue University, please contact the project manager, Dr. Jennifer D. Moss at moss16@purdue.edu.

Currently in STEAM:

• We have collected data from over 23 courses in 7 colleges at the university.
• We have surveyed over 7000 students.
• We are beginning to tell the story of our project with this data.

Courses included in STEAM:

• Are from the STEAM fields of science, technology, engineering, agriculture, and math.
• Primarily enroll freshmen and sophomores.
• Enroll large numbers of students, either in large sections or in multiple smaller sections
• Are courses frequently found on plans of study from multiple departments
• Have multiple sections each semester so comparisons can be made between transformed and “business-as-usual” sections.  

Faculty members who are participating in STEAM:

• Completed the IMPACT program to transform their course.
• Identified or created a knowledge exam that is specific to their course, and are administering it as a pre-test and a post-test

Students in STEAM courses:

• Complete course knowledge exams
• Are invited to participate in the Student Perception Surveys at the beginning and end of the semester