Leveraging a Faculty Community of Practice Model of Professional Learning to Enhance Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in STEM Teaching, Learning, and Leadership

California State University-Dominguez Hills Foundation, Carson CA

Investigators

Abstract

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Track 1 project aims to build faculty expertise on how to implement evidence-based practices in STEM. This project seeks to broaden STEM faculty's use of inclusive pedagogy and welcoming environments in STEM courses, improve alignment between courses offered at the community colleges and the universities, and support the development of a diverse faculty. Through a collaboration between California State University Dominguez Hills (CSUDH), CSU Long Beach, California Community College Success Network (3CSN), and the CSU's Institute for Teaching and Learning, the project aims to enhance teaching, learning, and leadership. Using a community of practice model of professional learning, the project will develop faculty learning communities that support STEM faculty from CSUDH and the local community colleges on best practices in teaching and learning coupled with identity, culture, context, power, bias, and institutionalized forms of oppression. The project will also examine how alignment of STEM curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment practices between two- and four-year institutions supports transfer student success. As a result, this project aims to build institutional capacity in developing STEM faculty to increase student retention and success, with an emphasis on underrepresented students. The project will investigate components of effective STEM faculty learning communities rooted in the science of learning and the culture of diverse students. The STEM faculty will then be equipped to reshape curriculum, teaching practices, interactions with students, and collegial interactions. In this project, the unit of change is the STEM faculty member which will then lead to a sustained institutional change that aims to provide an enhanced learning experience for students in STEM. The project will investigate the community of practices?s impact on 1) STEM faculty's development and implementation of evidence-based curriculum design, teaching, and assessment practices; 2) Faculty-student and faculty-faculty interaction (including faculty hiring, mentorship, sponsorship, evaluation, and retention practices), and faculty and students' sense of belonging; and 3) Leadership strategies including how faculty, administrators, and staff interact with, mentor, and evaluate each other in ways that improve the retention of individuals underrepresented within the STEM faculty. The project will use a grounded theory approach to study which elements of the faculty learning communities are most effective in training faculty. Data will be collected to assess impacts on student success based on individual departments and course goals and outcomes. This project seeks to develop an evidence-based tiered STEM faculty development model that enhances the STEM learning experiences for diverse students that other institutions may adopt. The project will be shared through presentations at conferences, publications, as well as CSU's Institute for Teaching and Learning. The 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 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.