Abstract

The recent study spanning two decades of students in STEM (Seymour and Hunter, 2019) identified that the most important factors of why students leave STEM majors relate to course structure and poor teaching, and lack of a sense of belonging in the field. Building upon my experience in teaching astronomy to both STEM and non-STEM undergraduates for over a decade, my involvement in Center for Excellence in Science Education at Penn State, and as a instructor and facilitator at the yearly Evidence Based Teaching Academy at Penn State, and the scholar at Penn State’s Equity Pedagogy Network, I will discuss teaching strategies that we can use to affect positive change in these numbers. After briefly reviewing teaching strategies based on meta analysis of 80 Million students (Hattie 2009) I will give examples on using backward design and active learning in Astronomy courses, and how to avoid the ‘coverage trap’ that most STEM instructors fall into. I will also include the more modern approach to student motivation which is tied to the sense of belonging in science and to student Astronomy or Physics identity and how to achieve increased student astronomy identity and a sense of belonging in the major.  Finally, I will discuss how sustainability, and projects driven by such goals that connect and address socio-scientific issues (e.g. understanding light pollution and dark skies) can provide meaningful engagement and deepen both conceptual understanding and the sense of belonging for all students.