Narrowing achievement gaps and improving undergraduate STEM retention for Under-Represented Minority (URM) and First-Generation (FG) college students is a national education priority. Several intensive and high cost means of improving STEM success for URM and FG students have been reported in the higher education literature, many funded by the NSF. However, adopting such strategies and maintaining them over the long term has been a challenge, particularly at financially-strapped colleges where these efforts must compete among many funding priorities.

To address this issue, we designed interventions that center around STEM faculty, engaging both faculty empathy and faculty agency to transform the STEM teaching community towards improved outcomes for URM and FG students from the classroom. Interventions included a year-long faculty development program, emphasizing evidence-based teaching practices and assessments, particularly regarding the needs of diverse learners. Faculty were also supported in a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) mentoring group, in which they approached their own teaching from a scholarly perspective. A third intervention focused on enhancing peer tutor training to better support URM and FG students in early STEM courses.

Intellectual Merit:

Since the implementation of the project, several important outcomes have been achieved. First, we developed and tested three new survey instruments for the assessment of the appreciation for and use of evidence-based and culturally-responsive STEM teaching strategies by faculty, and a fourth survey is under development. From these surveys, EMU faculty participants showed greater appreciation of pedagogy than control groups at other similar colleges. Analysis of faculty participant writing in open-ended assignments corroborates the survey findings, showing participant faculty moving from more teacher-centered views to more student learner-centered views of teaching and learning, and gaining more positive beliefs regarding evidence-based and culturally responsive instructional practices.

For the sake of long-term sustainability, our efforts to improve our STEM tutoring program focused on improving our current structures (the tutoring program present in our Academic Support Center, ASC), rather than starting any separate or parallel efforts. Our ASC director was thus a part of the NSF project team. We report that increased numbers of URM and FG students served as paid STEM peer tutors than in years prior. Tutors and faculty reported improved tutor training, particularly in regard to increased learner-centered approaches, and supportive teaching towards URM and FG students. We also found that students were more likely to use tutor services when the tutors are embedded in specific STEM courses (e.g. when the tutors attended and participated in class, and interacted at least weekly with the course instructor in conversation about the course content and how to best teach it).

All told, we have seen an increase in STEM retention to the second fall semester for STEM-intending students, regardless of race/ethnicity or first-generation college student status, and in both science majors and technology/engineering/math majors, with narrowed race and FG gaps in STEM retention rates. The odds of STEM retention improved since the implementation for both URM and FG students. STEM retention increased most significantly for moderately well-prepared students (?B students?). Academic preparation (determined from High School GPA and SAT scores) was and continues to be the most predictive factor in retention to the second year of STEM students, and any effect of demographic factors appears to be largely due to weaker academic preparation before college at EMU, likely due to lower-resourced schools and communities. 

Broader Impacts:

There have been significant impacts at EMU. Seventeen EMU faculty participated in the faculty development activities. Ten of these participant faculty also took part in the SoTL mentoring activities. Forty-six additional STEM tutors were recruited and trained. These efforts had indirect impacts on students in more than 20 courses. Following the grant, faculty teaching and learning communities have continued, as have the embedded tutor initiatives. 

Beyond EMU, we have published and presented this work in numerous settings, and have directly shared the reports with several of our sister institutions. We hope to further disseminate the products developed during is project (survey instruments) and our findings. 

Finally, our project demonstrates that investment in STEM faculty professional development can pay measurable dividends, both in improved faculty outcomes, but also in broader student and university outcomes. Financially-strapped colleges struggle to pay for everything on the wish lists of every campus constituency, and professional teaching development can feel like a luxury when balancing many other needs. Here we have shown that moderate investment in faculty professional development, which intentionally works towards addressing wider concerns of the university, of the STEM community and the academy, can pay off. We suggest that if faculty understand and empathize with the problem (e.g. low retention in STEM for URM and FG students), and can see themselves as drivers of the needed change, then university investment in faculty development can effectively work towards that change. 

Last Modified: 12/27/2020
Modified by: Stephen G Cessna