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♪ KU choral chant ♪
Ben: I'm Ben Wolfe, I'm a Ph.D. graduate student in
the School of Education.
I'm in the educational leadership and policy studies.
I'm originally from Lincoln, Nebraska.
The central issue that I'm focusing with my research is
really addressing the difficult transition that science
majors face when they're transitioning from a community
college to a four-year college, sometimes called
"transfer shock".
How do we successfully prepare students, specifically looking
at S.T.E.M., which is science, technology, engineering, and
mathematics majors and how they make the transition from
community college, or two-year college, into a four-year
program and then continue on to receive their
bachelor's degree.
The issue that I'm addressing with my research is
that about 50% of all undergraduates
start their college career at a community
college but only a small number, anywhere between 25-40%,
actually successfully transition to a four-year school.
Then we're looking at specifically science, engineering,
technology, and math majors, that percentage is even smaller.
I specifically am looking at what's called field-based
learning, or field studies.
It's where students are engaging in science curriculum,
either biology or geology, by going out in the field learning
science while in a hands-on environment.
What we're finding is that students have greater value placed
on the content that they're learning in a field-based
learning environment, they perceive less difficulty even
though the curricular topics are the same, they perceive
greater self-efficacy, in other words that they're able to do
science and put it to practice.
So we're seeing some very positive results of students really
valuing field-based education over traditional lecture and
laboratory.
Part of what my research is looking at is policy studies of
what we can do for two-year college curriculum development,
and then also partnership with four-year colleges, to really
help students make the transition, that are interested in
science, from two-year to four-year college.
This research is really critical for Kansas because we can
really grow a work force in S.T.E.M. related fields
here in Kansas.
The faculty within the School of Education, specifically the
educational leadership and policy study, are fantastic to
work with.
I'm a married graduate student, I work full-time, they're
very accommodating with my schedule, they do evening classes,
and make it such that I can have a full-time job, support my
family, but still pursue my dream of receiving a Ph.D.