By Beth Lavin

There are several key strategies for increasing the retention of students in STEM disciplines. Since a high percentage of STEM losses occur in the first two years, institutions must work to change the learning experience for students during this time period. Researchers at Purdue University have offered the following six strategies for making first- and second-year STEM curricula more appealing to underrepresented students:

Reduced Class Sizes

• Limit course enrollment to 25 students or less
• Decrease use of labs taught by teaching assistants
• Allows students more opportunity to engage in small group and community-building activities
• Increase time for high quality teacher-student and student-student interactions

Regular Monitoring of Courses

• Implement enhanced teacher evaluations
• Restructure courses with DFW (D, F, or withdrawal) rates of 25 percent or higher

Institute a common first-year experience for all students

• Programming may include cross-disciplinary courses highlighting the connections between STEM and other subject matter (e.g., business, politics, culture)

Provide experiential learning opportunities

• Develop research-based and/or service-learning programs
• Experiential opportunities help to recruit well-prepared students into STEM majors

Increase student support and mentoring

• Provide students with information on selecting STEM courses
• Provide students with information on available STEM careers
• Offer assistance for students with academic difficulties
• Encourage close relationships between STEM faculty, students, and others in the same disciplines
• Expand student support services
• Increase the amount of academic advisors
• Encourage senior students to mentor incoming STEM students
• Implement learning communities
• Promote student groups (e.g., Women in Science, the Minority Engineering Program)