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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to: (1) explore existing practices of STEM faculty at a private Lebanese university and (2) assess the extent of implementation of active learning among faculty members of selected STEM departments.Design/methodology/approachThe Working Group on “Integrating Modern Scientific teaching methodologies in STEM” (IM-STEM) at a tertiary university in Lebanon advocates for novel research-based methods to enhance STEM education. This pilot study investigated, using a modified version of the Wieman and Gilbert “Teaching Practices Inventory”, the current teaching methods used by faculty members in selected STEM departments.FindingsRemarkably, most respondents admit a willingness to incorporate new teaching methods. Main findings indicate that traditional teaching via didactic lecturing remains prevalent in the STEM classrooms at the tertiary academic institution in Lebanon despite sporadic individual efforts by faculty members to utilize unconventional methods and active learning.Research limitations/implicationsOne major limitation that influenced the efficiency of this study is the small number of respondents (71 faculty members). More in-depth data collection combining quantitative and qualitative data should be done in future studies.Practical implicationsGaining insight into the actual methods used in STEM fields in various departments can help the university management to better understand the key importance of educational reform.Originality/valueThe main value of this paper is to serve as a prelude for educational reform at a tertiary academic institution.

We study the nonsteady Stokes flow in a thin tube structure composed by two thin rectangles with lateral elastic boundaries which are connected by a domain with rigid boundaries. After a variational approach of the problem which gives us existence, uniqueness, regularity results, and somea prioriestimates, we construct an asymptotic solution. The existence of a junction region between the two rectangles imposes to consider, as part of the asymptotic solution, some boundary layer correctors that correspond to this region. We present and solve the problems for all the terms of the asymptotic expansion. For two different cases, we describe the order of steps of the algorithm of solving the problem and we construct the main term of the asymptotic expansion. By means of thea prioriestimates, we justify our asymptotic construction, by obtaining a small error between the exact and the asymptotic solutions.