STEMGen Active Learning Conference
YEREVAN, Armenia — On March 7, 2022, the American University of Armenia (AUA) hosted the STEMGen Active Learning Conference and Extended STEMGen(eration) workshop. U.S. Ambassador to Armenia, Her Excellency Ms. Lynne M. Tracy, RA Deputy Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport, Janna Andreasyan, and AUA President Dr. Karin Markides delivered opening remarks.
The conference was organized within the framework of a three-year “STEM Education for Armenian Youth” (publicly known as STEMGen) program, funded by the U.S. Embassy in Armenia and implemented by the American University of Armenia (AUA).
During the conference, the STEMGen program launched a new Instructional Design platform to make all STEM teaching and learning resources accessible to all Armenian STEM teachers by creating a collaborative space leveraging our teachers’ creativity.
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The two-day conference brought together over 300 teachers, who attended and observed STEMGen workshops, lessons taught with STEMGen resources, sessions for using STEMGen platform. In addition, they took part in panel discussions with the National Center for Development and Innovation, Industry leaders and high school students, who shared their experiences of learning with STEMGen resources.
The overarching goal of the program is the improvement of teaching and learning practices in STEM subjects through teacher workshops and design of new types of educational resources that guide teachers in implementing Active Learning approaches and methodologies in their everyday practice.
Since its launch in October 2019, the program has collaborated with more than 400 teachers to design and test STEM lesson plans and scenarios that facilitate teachers with any level of knowledge and experience in modern pedagogical concepts and subject content to deliver engaging and effective lessons. Around 2,500 7-12-grade students participated in STEMGen summer camps, simulation classes, and offline testing sessions. By the end of the program in September 2022, resources for 1800 lessons in five STEM subjects will be designed and tested.
This year, the STEMGen program invited and enjoyed a high engagement with experts from the National Center for Development and Innovation in Education to attend teacher workshops and collaborate with teachers designing STEMGen educational resources.
Our surveys from the previous two years of the program indicate that 75% of the students who participated in STEMGen lessons have changed their perception towards STEM subjects and 45% of students indicated that they will consider STEM careers. Nearly all of the STEM subject teachers who tested our resources indicated that they would use the resources in their everyday teaching practice and would be willing to contribute to further improve the quality of resources.
