Weed out weed-out courses

A dismal reality of college education in the U.S. is that 25 percent of Caucasian and 14 percent of underrepresented minority students who aspire to a STEM degree - Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics - earn one in four years, according to one longitudinal study out of UCLA in 2010. While substantial racial disparities are exposed, equally alarming is the lower degree completion rate that prospective STEM majors have than their same-race peers pursuing non-STEM degrees. Growing evidence suggests that the conventional practice of using rigorous introductory STEM courses to identify future scientists by "weeding out" others discourages otherwise capable students from pursuing STEM degrees. For instance, last month's issue of Science magazine - one of world's top academic journals - claimed that, "Weed-Out Courses Hamper Diversity."

The evidence comes from surveys conducted by the Bayer Foundation. In 2010, Bayer surveyed over 1,200 chemists and chemical engineers from underrepresented minorities as well as Caucasian and Asian women in the chemical field. A significant number of them (40 percent) reported that they were discouraged from pursuing a STEM career, and that college was the place (60 percent) and college professors were the individuals responsible (44 percent) for this discouragement. Last year, in an effort to hear the other side of the story, the Bayer Foundation surveyed over 400 chairs of STEM departments from the nation's top 200 research universities and institutions producing mostly African-American, Hispanic and American Indian STEM graduates. Forty-six percent of the surveyed chairs acknowledge that weed-out courses drive capable students away from STEM majors. Interestingly, though, a majority (57 percent) "see no need to significantly change their introductory courses to retain more STEM students, including women and minorities." (More than 85 percent of the chairs surveyed were Caucasian males.)

These statistics are quite shocking, especially now when we need to produce more STEM professionals to help us solve various national and global crises. Students excited by the cool science experiments performed in high school hit a wall in college. They lose their momentum in the crowd of hundreds that quietly slouches in the seats staring at the instructor lecture for an hour. Many introductory STEM classes make it clear that majority will get a B- or C+, perhaps as a means to scare away those not serious about a STEM degree. It sets up an unpleasant competitiveness and infuses a sense of insecurity that hinders active, curiosity-based learning by students, who instead start memorizing theories, laws and equations so as not to be left behind in class without really understanding concepts. Most of those who manage to pass by regurgitating are scared to enroll in advance STEM courses, which are generally abstract and "applied," like game theory or population dynamics. STEM, which in the real world is cool and amazing, becomes unpleasant and discouraging.

We - including the STEM chairs of our nations' leading institutions - have a false sense that high-quality education is one which many students fail to achieve; when in reality, that education is not accessible to a greater portion simply because of poor instruction. Research has consistently demonstrated that students grasp concepts better with active learning rather than passively hearing a lecture for an hour, and then watching some graduate student solve practice problems that they couldn't. STEM fields in reality are all about application in the real world with visual, experiential, hands-on problem solving.

But it's easier said than done. STEM professors whose jobs and salaries depend on research grants will not have the time or energy to be innovative and creative instructors, willing to make the effort to understand why a majority of the students have low grades. Unless the institutions and STEM chairs prioritize improving the quality of teaching in STEM rather than ignoring this problem, introductory lecture STEM courses will continue to "weed out" students as rampantly as they have been.

Akshitkumar Mistry is a fourth-year student in the Medical School. He can be reached at .