Enhancing Student Performance and Persistence through a Wisdom Community

New Mexico State University, Las Cruces NM

Investigators

Abstract

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this project aims to create a Wisdom Community (WisCom) at New Mexico State University (NMSU) using an innovative instructional design model based on collaborative and interactive learning standards and distance education principles. As a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) NMSU serves a large Latinx student population. Due to the proximity with Mexico, many of these students are Mexican Americans who experience socio-economic barriers and educational inequalities. With this project, undergraduate students will benefit from forming a support network that will improve on-campus personal interactions and off-campus virtual- engagement. The development of the WisCom in Electrical and Computer Engineering [ECE-WisCom] will involve innovation in learning and teaching using a virtual educational space to facilitate online synchronous and asynchronous communication and collaboration. The ECE-WisCom platform focuses on online learning, which is important at a time when remote learning is becoming a permanent fixture in the post-COVID pedagogical landscape. The project will facilitate novel practices and activities that could be replicated and implemented not only in other NMSU disciplines, but also in other academic settings, including other minority serving institutions (MSIs) with similar student demographics and characteristics. The Electrical and Computer Engineering Wisdom Community at NMSU’s goal is to identify and establish best practices, impactful attributes, recommendations, and implications for using online media and Mixed Reality (MR) spaces to support STEM communities of practice. The research paradigm is educational design and development research. It includes an analysis of needs and goals and exploration of the learning context to design and construct a functional ECE-WisCom Learning Management System (LMS) prototype. An evaluation and reflection upon the design features of the ECE-WisCom and its effects on ECE students’ academic performance will be conducted as well. The research design consists of a mixed-methods approach to evaluate the efficacy of the MR platform once it is in use. The envisioned MR platform will maximize four outcomes: community, identity formation, critical thinking, and academic performance. The dissemination includes the development of a website to facilitate practices and activities that can be replicated in other academic settings, including other MSIs and HSIs. 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 diversify and increase participation in STEM effectively, and (iii) that improves the STEM undergraduate education enterprise's understanding of how to build institutional capacity to undertake lasting change at HSIs that are supported by this program. 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.