Building Capacity: Transforming Undergraduate Education in STEM Through Culturally Relevant Pedagogy and Community Engagement

The University Of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg TX

Investigators

Abstract

The Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program (HSI Program) aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also generate new knowledge on how to achieve these aims. This project at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley will advance the aims of the HSI Program by increasing the retention and graduation of undergraduate students in science and mathematics. The project plans to achieve its goals by offering well-designed, high impact STEM courses that build upon culture, community engagement, and regionally-relevant research. To these ends, this project will train STEM faculty in culturally relevant pedagogy and community engaged scholarship. These faculty will then develop new mathematics and biology "gateway" courses for first year/early career students, offered in a bilingual modality. The faculty will also develop new classes in Community Engaged Scholarship and Learning, which will emphasize meaningful engagement in community-based STEM-related projects. By emphasizing the broader, societal relevance of STEM fields, these new courses will help first year students develop a sense of belonging and commitment. It is expected that these innovations will enhance students' success in STEM, helping to address a national need to increase diversity in STEM fields. This project will design and implement professional development workshops to help faculty develop inclusive, culturally relevant teaching practices, and to help faculty implement effective community engagement and experiential learning in STEM. These faculty will develop and teach new introductory core biology and math courses ("gateway courses") in a bilingual modality, as well as new first year courses in Community Engaged Scholarship and Learning. Through measures of academic, behavioral, and perceptual gains (e.g., pre/post assessments; measures of science motivation), the project will determine the impact of these courses on students' sense of belonging, pride, and cultural wealth, with the goal of defining how these characteristics intersect with student performance and retention. Using surveys, open ended questions, and focus group interviews, this project also aims to measure the impact of the professional development activities and new courses on faculty awareness of community engagement and on the faculty's use of culturally-relevant pedagogies. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.