Practical STEM at The Open University: The OpenSTEM Labs
Abstract: The Open University’s innovative, award-winning distance teaching credentials have, over our initial 50-year history, seen over 2 million students receive an education, otherwise denied to them at campus-based universities. As part of this, we have a long history of using innovative methods to deliver authentic practical experiences in STEM subjects. The OpenSTEM Labs (www.openstemlabs.ac.uk) are our latest initiative to enable collaborative practical STEM work in the distance teaching context of The Open University. We challenge the traditional STEM teaching model of students and tutors being collocated in a lab during ‘office hours’. We connect students to instrumentation, data and equipment for practical enquiries over the internet, where distance is no longer a barrier and where access can be available 24 hours a day.
Presider: Yoko Usui, Miyagi University