OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY
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Learn more about how we chose our new name
The Undergraduate Field Experiences Research Network (U-FERN) holds monthly webinars around 21st-century field education. Click here to read more...
Associate Director Julie Risien is helping to develop NSF's new ARIS Center in Columbia, Missouri
Click here to read more about our staff and faculty
The STEM Research Center (formerly the Center for Research on Lifelong STEM Learning) was established in 2012 to work across campus to enhance OSU's capacity in STEM learning research, and to strengthen the impact of this research on the practices of teaching and learning. The Center is unique among STEM center counterparts around the country in its focus on research and its commitment to understanding learning and engagement across all settings (in and out of school) and across the lifespan for all audiences. These audiences range from young to old learners, laypeople to STEM professionals, and occur within both formal educational and free-choice learning contexts. Within OSU, the Center serves as a neutral broker for a diverse and decentralized community of those who engage in STEM learning research within our university by functioning as a central hub and institutional support structure. Externally, the Center serves as a representative for OSU’s STEM learning research at the state, national and international levels. Major initiatives at the center include the institutionalization of tools and capacities to expand the societal benefit or ‘broader impacts’ of the OSU research enterprise as related to the Center’s mission, redefining and modeling undergraduate success, and leading research in both free-choice and formal learning arenas.
We envision a world in which evidence from research and wisdom from practice guide all learning experiences.
The STEM Research Center conducts applied research with a broad range of partners and nurtures community engagement toward improved systems of STEM Learning for all.
The research focus of the center includes a diverse suite of research and evaluation efforts focused on how people with diverse backgrounds and life circumstances build knowledge and understanding about STEM, develop identities as STEM learners and dispositions to engage with STEM-related issues, and ultimately build capacity to apply that knowledge and understanding to their daily and professional lives. Our STEM learning research also includes the study of methods, institutions, media, and people who play a role in mediating learning (e.g. schools, museums, magazines, teachers, etc.) and therefore includes research and evaluation of STEM education and science communication. Learn more about our research.
Updated 9/11/2018
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