Improving STEM Degree Completion with Professional Development to Support Inclusive and Equitable Classroom Practices

University Of California-Irvine, Irvine CA

Investigators

Abstract

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program (HSI Program), this project aims to facilitate institutional transformation by addressing environmental factors that negatively influence undergraduate degree completion in STEM. The project will offer a series of workshops that promote effective, research-based teaching approaches in STEM fields by considering research barriers to academic success. The project will seek to address degree completion by providing faculty and administrators with activities, exercises, and facilitated discussions of their own and their students' experiences at the institution. By taking a collaborative research-oriented approach to working with faculty and administrators, the project will seek to provide processes that other institutions can follow. To directly address the importance of culture in the classroom, the project will employ a mixed methods research design, and a multi-session faculty professional development series integrated into the broader campus community. Three overarching goals guide this project. First is to lay a solid foundation of local and national data that will be used to inform participant practices and behaviors in the classroom. Second is to increase awareness of factors that impact STEM students, including first-generation and low-income students. Third is to modify classroom practices and policies to increase student engagement and success. Project research will use interviews, surveys, and classroom observation data to better understand student experiences and explore how participation in the project professional development enhances faculty teaching practices. Dissemination efforts will include a project website for sharing pertinent project information, multiple research publications and presentations, and a research conference. The HSI Program aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education, broaden participation in STEM, and build capacity at HSIs. Achieving these aims, given the diverse nature and context of the HSIs, requires innovative approaches that incentivize institutional and community transformation and promote fundamental research (i) on engaged student learning, (ii) about what it takes to broaden and increase participation in STEM effectively, and (iii) that improves our understanding of how to build institutional capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also draw from these approaches to 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.