STEM Club Leadership for Undergraduate STEM Education, Recruiting and Success (STEM CLUSTERS)

University Of Colorado At Denver, Aurora CO

Investigators

Abstract

There is a national need to improve undergraduate STEM education and to understand effective strategies for developing disciplinary knowledge and non-cognitive skills sets of undergraduates. The significance of this project is that it will study the effect on undergraduate students of their participation in 7-12 STEM outreach, a strategy that is being used across the nation and believed to be beneficial. In particular, the STEM Club Leadership for Undergraduate STEM Education, Recruiting and Success (STEM CLUSTERS) project will study the influence of 7-12 outreach, through organizing school STEM clubs, by conducting research on undergraduate STEM majors' learning, metacognition, communication skills and sensitivity to equity issues in STEM. Building upon an established culture of multidisciplinary K-12 STEM outreach at the University of Colorado Denver, this project will organize and lead STEM clubs at five partner schools in the greater Denver area. Each club will be organized by a vertical team centered on 2-3 undergraduate Outreach Fellows (undergraduate STEM majors) who will take a central role in designing, organizing and delivering club activities. Each club's Fellows will be supported by experienced university faculty, an experienced 7-12 STEM teacher, and a graduate co-facilitator. The goals of this exploratory project are to: (1) conduct a detailed research study to ascertain how organizing STEM clubs impacts the undergraduate Outreach Fellows' learning, communication skills, metacognition and sensitivity to equity issues in STEM; (2) provide the Outreach Fellows with an authentic, interactive learning experience, through their responsibilities to plan and oversee a middle or high school STEM club; and (3) provide broad, high-quality STEM outreach to students in grades 7-12. The project's research agenda explores how participation in the project: (1) impacts Outreach Fellows' own science content knowledge; (2) increases the Fellows' metacognitive knowledge and skills; (3) affects the Fellows' ability to communicate complex scientific ideas; and (4) heightens the Fellows' sensitivity to equity issues in STEM. The project utilizes a case study approach to these questions, in which each Fellow is a case, and all Fellows together are interrelated cases with common experiences. The Intellectual Merit of this project resides in the evidence-based findings that will be generated related to the effects of 7-12 STEM outreach on undergraduate student learning and other key skills, and is further supported by the capacity of the research team and the soundness of the project research plan, which builds upon a well-established research literature. The Broader Impacts of this project include the potential for broad adoption of the model, which is compatible with a wide variety of club formats and school settings. Moreover, the project's findings are applicable to improving access for a breadth of students, as the Fellows and the schools they support are representative of the increasing diversity of our nation. Finally, the findings of the project will be useful to a broad cross-section of the STEM education community, relating both to the diversity of the STEM pipeline and to the creation of effective learning environments.