STEM Collaboration Workshop for TCUP, RDE and REESE Communities

College Of The Menominee Nation, Keshena WI

Investigators

Abstract

The STEM Collaboration Workshop for TCUP, RDE and REESE Communities is a project designed to bring together educators and leaders of RDE, REESE and TCUP awards for pre-workshop virtual communication, three subsequent workshops, and post-workshop virtual networking; the objectives of this work are for facilitators to: 1) Conduct a pre-workshop capacity assessment of tribal colleges and communities concerning the status of services, educational practices and policies for students with disabilities in STEM. 2) Conduct an initial three-day workshop at CMN. The primary goal of the workshop is to create partnerships and to develop collaborations across the tribal college, STEM disability education and STEM education research communities. At this initial gathering the participants will target the following activities: - The capacity assessment will be reviewed; and the RDE-funded and REESE-funded researchers and educators will propose resources for the AI/NA students and tribal colleges; - The tribal teams will educate the RDE/REESE communities about how non-tribal institutions of higher education can employ culturally sensitive supports for AI/NA students with disabilities transitioning from high school to college and pursuing STEM degrees; - Facilitators will emphasize how to create collaborations for joint work across the TCUP, RDE and REESE programs. - Recommendations will be generated for distribution to HRD PIs at the HRD Joint Annual Meeting (JAM). 3) Continue, post-conference, to work with participants using virtual communication tools to strengthen and implement the RDE/REESE/TCUP collaborations. 4) Support collaborating teams at half-day workshops held at the 2011 and 2012 JAM. 5) Encourage tribal college teams to discuss, refine and submit NSF proposals. The proposal contains three specific intermediate outcomes resulting from the workshop series and the virtual communication across the research and education communities: 1) To increase the number of collaborations between TCUP, RDE and REESE funded projects for curriculum development, research and workforce development for American Indian (AI) Students With Disabilities (SWD) in FY 2010-2014 2) To increase the number of proposals submitted to the RDE and REESE programs from TCUP funded institutions in FY 2011-2014; and 3) To increase the number of collaborative proposals from TCUs and RDE projects to the following EHR programs in the FY 2011-2012: ATE, TUES, DRK-12, ISE, ITEST, MSP REESE, STEP and the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program An independent evaluation of the project will be conducted and the following dissemination strategies will be utilized: 1) Post-workshop virtual communication among RDE, REESE and TCUP participants and community members. 2) Information and recommendations will be presented at the JAM. 3) Findings and recommendations will be published in a final report.