CI-TEAM Demonstration Project: Enhancing STEM Education through Faculty Training in the Use of Cyberinfrastructure

Cuny City College, New York NY

Investigators

Abstract

In this demonstration project, the City College of New York (CCNY), with the collaboration of LaGuardia Community College (LAGCC) and Hostos Community College (HCC), are engaging community college professors in faculty development workshops focused upon integrating CI applications into introductory STEM courses. The CI applications to be demonstrated in this work are research databases, software packages for graphing and statistical analysis in mathematics, and cyber environments for virtual laboratory experiments in chemistry and physics. The ultimate beneficiaries will be the students of these faculty participants. The training is to be used in specific courses at LAGCC and HCC. The project goals are: Goal 1. To develop community college faculty expertise in using CI effectively to promote STEM learning. Goal 2. To strengthen and enrich students? learning of science and mathematics with the appropriate use of CI-applications. Goal 3. To broaden participation and increase the number of students who are interested in CI in order to increase the cyber-ready workforce. Intellectual Merit: This project is based on a creative and potentially transformative concept: in allowing students to use the Internet, their comfort zone is expanded to include other computer-based tools that will improve their performance in STEM courses and extend their CI-based learning to their workforce experiences. Science education research underscores the benefits of CI in enabling students to take an active role in their learning, to deepen understanding of basic scientific concepts, to improve critical thinking and to build problem-solving skills. The working hypothesis is that integrating computer applications into the learning experience at a fairly early stage in students? college careers will inculcate computer-based practices for their lifetimes. Broader Impact: Dissemination of this work will help to transform lower-level college science and mathematics courses by incorporating the extensive use of CI throughout the learning process. The long-range benefit lies in its impact on underrepresented minority students' performance in introductory STEM courses and in diversifying the student population participating in CI activities as part of their science, math, or engineering education. The project is easily adaptable to other institutions. In this project, the activities will be scaled up to include additional courses at the participating colleges and then beyond to other colleges at the City University of New York (CUNY). A strong national dissemination effort is also planned.