ABSTRACT

In this project a team at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NCA&T) - an Historically Black College and University (HBCU) - will address the established and growing national need to provide strong STEM preparation for a diverse set of students to enter the domestic workforce. The investigators will employ, study, and assess an instructional and student learning model, called the Mathematics Emporium Model (MEM), to improve students' performance in introductory mathematics courses. These gatekeeper courses are normally taken during an intense and often difficult transition for students, from high school to college. The MEM eliminates lecture and uses commercially available interactive computer software combined with personalized on-demand assistance and mandatory student participation. The underlying principle of the Emporium Model is that students learn by doing. Research reveals that the shift to student-centered instructional practices enhances students' attitudes and beliefs about learning in mathematics courses and increases student-learning gains. In addition to student learning gains, project activities will lead to faculty and graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) who can use MEM to implement active learning pedagogies and be more engaged and effective in promoting and assessing student learning. The project will directly reach a combined annual enrollment in traditionally low-pass-rate courses of more than 4,000 students, who will be mostly from underrepresented groups. In addition, the project will have a long-term impact in that the participating GTAs represent future college faculty.

The goals of this project include: generating a transformative change in teaching practices; measuring the value-added of learning in the MEM environment versus a traditional classroom; generating a committed team of trained faculty members who are skilled in the use of the MEM for mathematics instruction and engaged in the national Emporium community; conducting research on the impact of the MEM model, especially on broadening participation for underrepresented groups of students; and disseminating research and implementation findings to other institutions of higher education. Data will be systematically collected and analyzed to provide formative feedback for project improvement as well as to study overall project impact. Student learning and instructor professional development will be investigated using mixed methods, repeated measures, and hierarchical models. Outcomes of the project will include additions to the body of research on (1) the impact of an a MEM approach on learning gains, especially for minority students, and (2) the professional development needs of faculty to implement active-learning experiences in MEM and other undergraduate classrooms successfully. As a result, the project will (a) enhance national broadening participation efforts in STEM, especially related to emporium-type approaches, and (b) inform other institutions in this realm.

This project is funded through the Division of Undergraduate Education with co-funding from the Historically Black Colleges and Universities - Undergraduate Program (HBCU-UP) in the Division of Human Resource Development (HRD). Both divisions are in the Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR).

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