White Paper on Promising Practices in Undergraduate STEM Education

Numerous calls for improvement in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education have been made (National Academy of Engineering, 2004, 2005; National Research Council, 1999, 2003a, 2003b) and the Board of Science Education of the National Academies has established a committee to recommend a list of promising practices in undergraduate STEM education. To support the committee in its work, this white paper offers a set of promising practices using two sets of standards: implementation and student performance, against which each promising practice will be evaluated. Each promising practice offers an alternative for one or more of the decisions that faculty members or curriculum program committees make as they construct courses or curricula.