| NSF Org: |
DUE Division Of Undergraduate Education |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | May 1, 2017 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | February 17, 2021 |
| Award Number: | 1645083 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Mary Crowe
mcrowe@nsf.gov (703)292-5188 DUE Division Of Undergraduate Education EDU Directorate for STEM Education |
| Start Date: | May 1, 2017 |
| End Date: | April 30, 2022 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $288,978.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $288,978.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
1102 Q ST STE 4800 SACRAMENTO CA US 95811-6562 (916)325-0117 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
1102 Q Street, Suite 4800 Sacramento CA US 95811-6549 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | IUSE |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.076 |
ABSTRACT
Advances in many aspects of our lives rely on having a highly skilled, professional workforce in STEM. Regrettably, approximately 40% of students who begin their undergraduate studies intending to pursue a STEM major do not complete a STEM degree. However, recent developments in STEM education research have demonstrated convincingly that student success rates can be significantly improved by utilizing instructional methods that actively engage students in their courses. Due to evolving national demographics, the STEM education community must also strive to engage learners from diverse backgrounds and origins to further ensure a sufficient supply of STEM talent for the domestic workforce. Considering that the population growth rate of Hispanic citizens and permanent residents outpaces all other racial and ethnic groups, this project will focus on STEM education issues in two-year Hispanic-serving institutions (2Y-HSIs) located in California's San Diego and Imperial Counties. Specifically, this research will investigate factors that influence the implementation of active learning strategies by STEM instructors in 2Y-HSIs and how the active learning impacts the students in their classrooms.
This project will conduct STEM education research on capacity-building professional development efforts for 20 STEM instructors from participating 2Y-HSIs. The research foci will be primarily two-fold, exploring factors that influence instructors to change their teaching methods, and examining how the newly-established active learning environments impact student success. This project will contribute to the knowledge base about instructional change strategies and active learning in 2Y-HSIs, which are institutions of increasing national importance. During each year of the two-year project, 10 STEM instructors from the 2Y-HSIs will participate in a three-day Course Design Studio offered by the Center for Engaged Teaching at UC San Diego. The participants will redesign their STEM courses and, with follow-up support from the project team of Principal Investigators and UC San Diego graduate students, implement the redesigned courses and conduct assessments of their impacts. The graduate students will have completed a set of courses in teaching and learning and graduate teaching apprenticeships in 3-4 undergraduate courses. Results from the research will be disseminated through local symposia that convene 2Y-HSI instructors and administrators with UC San Diego and UT Austin collaborators, along with broader-ranging meetings, conferences and targeted scholarly journals.
PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH
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PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
Research to identify effective strategies with the potential to enhance how students learn in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) courses has clearly demonstrated that undergraduates achieve deeper understanding and experience greater success when participating in classroom environments that include active learning. Many active-learning methods have been developed, implemented and assessed in STEM learning environments, and they span a wide range of possibilities. However, the common thread that binds them together is that they all provide students with opportunities to be more engaged and involved in their own learning than does traditional instruction, in which students are passive recipients of knowledge delivered by an instructor.
This project contributed to the propagation and incorporation of active-learning strategies into science classrooms in a collection of two-year Hispanic-serving institutions (2Y-HSIs) across San Diego and Imperial Counties in southernmost California. Participants supported by this work included 19 science faculty members, collectively representing all six community college districts in the region, and 10 doctoral students in science at the University of California, San Diego who had strong interests in undergraduate STEM education. The science disciplines represented by the project participants include astronomy & physics, biology, chemistry and earth sciences. All participants were provided research-informed professional development opportunities and a wealth of instructional resources to facilitate an individual collaboration between each 2Y-HSI faculty member and one doctoral student, with the overarching goal of redesigning a science course to include active-learning strategies.
Insights and outcomes generated by the education research conducted as part of this project have been shared with various communities of scholars through peer-reviewed journal articles and conference presentations. In particular, these widely-shared results have emphasized aspects of the design and implementation of a professional development program, with a focus on supporting efforts to revise STEM courses, which could be of value to others considering creating a similar program.
The 2Y-HSIs involved in this project collectively serve tens of thousands of Hispanic students across the two-county region, many of whom come from low-income households. As such, promoting the adoption of instructional practices that enhance the success of students in science courses at these colleges addresses the important societal goal of diversifying the STEM workforce. Similarly, with the recognized earnings premium associated with completing a college degree, supporting student success in science courses also has the potential of contributing to the transformation of lives from poverty to prosperity through education. With regard to the long-term impacts of this project, a given faculty member typically encounters thousands of students in their courses throughout their career. Additionally, several of the doctoral students who participated in this project reported ambitions to pursue faculty positions. Thus, even modest incremental improvements in student success in the science courses taught by participants of this project could bring about enduring impacts on the preparation of future professionals for the STEM workforce.
Last Modified: 08/21/2022
Modified by: David R Brown
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