Collaborative Research: NSF INCLUDES Alliance: STEM Core Expansion

Saddleback College, Mission Viejo CA

Investigators

Abstract

The STEM Core Alliance is an expansion of the basic STEM Core Initiative Design and Development Launch Pilot (NSF Award 1649381), which was implemented in 15 community colleges in three states to broaden participation in STEM disciplines through promoting remedial student advancement to calculus readiness, followed by continuing STEM internship and education. The STEM Core Alliance expands the basic STEM Core model to 17 additional colleges in 5 states through a hub and spoke network, supported by four regional hubs, designed to support continuous improvement, expansion, and replicability. The underlying STEM Core vision is to broaden participation among underprepared community college students through evidence-based practices that address barriers to accessing STEM Pathways. The STEM Core Alliance will seek to contribute to the knowledge base on broadening participation through four levels of action: student, institutional, regional, and national. Under the leadership of Saddleback College and with the expertise of the backbone organization, Growth Sector, 15 community colleges in three states have already implemented and 15 more and two additional states have committed to implement the STEM Core as part of a networked improvement community. They will share best practices, benefit from alliance-wide professional development, analyze data and evaluate the model's effectiveness, and identify additional funding streams to support the model beyond the current project. The regional hub institutions will provide the necessary infrastructure to monitor and assist STEM Core implementation at regional colleges on a continual basis. Multi-stakeholder partnerships with employers will provide STEM Core colleges with internship and work-based learning opportunities with employers and provide employers with a steady stream of qualified STEM students. This model enables the network to be expanded rapidly, as hubs can support 6-12 colleges with moderate investment and technical assistance from the backbone. The nation's thousands of community colleges, with similar missions, structures, and curricula, present a ready-made network for expansion. As the STEM Core expands, the alliance will contribute to the body of knowledge about networked improvement community effectiveness and identify opportunities for collaboration among other NSF INCLUDES alliances. In the short and especially the long term this project will produce, through increasing the participation of underrepresented groups in STEM fields, the benefits of enhancing progress in science and advancing national prosperity and welfare. This NSF INCLUDES Alliance is co-funded by the NSF Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) program, which seeks to increase the retention and graduation rates of students pursuing associate or baccalaureate degrees in STEM. To address barriers to STEM pathways, the STEM Core vision is to use the evidence-based practices of acceleration, cohort-based learning communities, contextualized learning, intensive support, and integrated internships. Contributions to the knowledge base on broadening participation will be made as follows. At the student level, the Alliance will evaluate the success in calculus readiness and advancement into STEM educational and career pathways for remedial students. At the institutional level, the goal will be for colleges to expand STEM pipelines for remedial students and to address underlying institutional low expectations for remedial students. The regional level goal is for regional hubs to sustain and expand STEM Core implementation in regional and statewide networks, ultimately increasing the number of colleges that implement the STEM Core model. Nationally, the alliance will expand the STEM Core network and impacts by adding colleges that adopt the STEM Core model and by sharing best practices and solutions to scale the STEM Core model nationwide. The regional hub institutions, as well as assisting STEM Core implementation at regional colleges, will coordinate professional development, conduct regular regional meetings and annual national alliance convenings, and coordinate the collection of regional student outcome data. STEM research and work opportunities that are not normally available to community college students will be provided by NASA JPL, Lawrence Livermore National Lab and other national laboratories that will provide internships for STEM Core students, giving them valuable contextualized experiences in STEM fields that may lead to STEM careers. As the backbone organization for the STEM Core Alliance, Growth Sector coordinates alliance-wide activities, communications, collaboration, and data collection and dissemination between Saddleback College, the regional hub institutions, and the 30 partner colleges, as well as the external evaluator and employer partners. The STEM Core Alliance's network incorporates leadership from Saddleback College, Growth Sector in the role of the backbone organization, and regional hubs to coordinate activities among partner colleges. This hub and spoke model enables regional leaders to implement the STEM Core reliably at scale, considering regional differences, populations, and needs in order to adapt the model appropriately. This NSF INCLUDES Alliance is co-funded by the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education:Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) program, which seeks to increase the retention and graduation rates of students pursuing associate or baccalaureate degrees in STEM. 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.