STEM—science, technology, engineering and mathematics—is the field that educators around the world are pushing for students to begin pursuing. However, too often students are struggling and failing. One supposedly obvious inference here is that these subjects are hard. While this is true, the education system currently at the university level isn't aiding many of its students as best as it could. My following opinions are taken both from my personal experiences and the experiences I have witnessed other fellow engineering students have had.
One of my biggest gripes with some of the courses today is the grading that, while not widespread, accounts for much of the lost opportunity for learning among students today. In tests, projects, team/individual assignments, there are occasionally “all or none” grading implementations.
One current poor test example is one that has several multiple choice questions. If the questions themselves take several steps there is more room for error in calculation and when a student makes said error they may very likely get the question wrong and lose all points for that question. However, the proposal I am suggesting that many professors already implement in some cases is a test that comes in the form of usually fewer questions that expect open ended responses. These questions will allow for the student to show their work and for the professor/teaching assistant/grader to give partial credit. The latter example of a test simultaneously makes a test, and overall, that course, more manageable, but also helps the grader and student communicate and visually show where the student went wrong. If a question takes approximately eight steps to solve and they make an error on the seventh step, in a multiple choice scenario they receive zero credit, but in the open ended response template, they receive their fair seven eighths allotment of points. This is fair because the student wasn't one-hundred percent wrong but only was incorrect at the penultimate step.
In many of the engineering courses there is another disconnect that comes from the hierarchy of faculty for a given course. The simple structure sometimes follows "X" number of students for an individual professor/instructor for the course. However, more recently there are more complex structures appearing. Now they are classes where there is an instructor at the head of the class who presents the lectures, teaching assistants who typically hold recitations where students will attend for labs or for homework review and similarly hold office hours, and sometimes even designated graders who's sole purpose is the grunt work of grading some arbitrary number of assignments, projects, or tests.
The problem with establishing more levels to the hierarchy is allowing more room for variability in the success of the communication of the curriculum to the students. It may seem intuitive to think at first that if there is only individual (the professor) for the students to come to if they need help, and the professor turns out to be terrible at communicating because there really isn't any formal requirements for someone with a PhD to instruct a class as there is in the K-12 education system, then having teaching assistants, and even graders, as well as the lone professor would seem like a benefit. If there are more people to go and talk to then the chances of being left with no one who is adept at helping others seems to diminish. Largely this is true and the sole benefit for having a more complex class structure. However, the negative impacts that can come as a result from this multi-tier hierarchy outweigh this potential benefit.
The delegation of responsibility as it trickles down from professor to teaching assistant to grader is not a river with a seamless flow. Imagine a game of telephone where the recipient likely loses key information along the way and in the end it is the students who suffer. When a professor is lazy and delegates responsibility to his/her subordinates, there is already a loss in value of the course because the person chosen because of their expertise in the subject matter has already placed some of the responsibilities to people who are less able.
The culture of STEM people itself does not always guarantee suitable instructors. Many of these people were either in industry or performing research and while you may find passionate individuals, there are perhaps as many who are not passionate about teaching, and it is likely that that number is even fewer when a professor is teaching a course they either find remedial, not apart of their research that they had done or are doing and therefore not interesting. There have been times where the indifference or even distaste for a subject in the course, or even the course in its entirety from the professor who was teaching it was so palpable. What kind of message does this send to not only the students who hear this professor groan on about a subject they themselves are admitting to not finding enticing, but also their assistants and graders who are the support cast for the professor. Potentially one person's negative attitude is permeating an entire group's experience.
STEM is a wonderful field and there are plenty of professionals, students, practitioners who are enthusiastic and passionate and who are also passionate about teaching and resourceful and well informed about communicating. The problem is laid out but the solution is not an easy one that will take bright minds working together to solve and make for a more efficient and rewarding experience for mostly the students sitting in the lecture hall but also the individuals instructing them.
