HSI Institutional Transformation Project: Building Community Success through Institutionalized and Culturally Responsive Support Systems

Sam Houston State University, Huntsville TX

Investigators

Abstract

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Track 3 project aims to provide instructors, teaching assistants, and peer tutors/mentors who teach and support STEM courses with professional development opportunities that will improve student grades and persistence. Through this professional development, the STEM instructional community (i.e., instructors, teaching assistants, and peer tutors/mentors) will gain the knowledge and skills to use evidence-based and culturally engaging practices in their learning spaces. The objective is to better serve and, ultimately, improve academic outcomes (i.e., course drops, grades, persistence) for students that experience the most academic inequities. Intentionally improving success for a diverse and talented, yet underserved, student population requires a commitment to the instructional community that teaches and supports students during early and pivotal moments in their academic careers. This instructional community includes instructors (largely non-tenure track), teaching assistants, and tutors/mentors that lead or assist instruction in lower-division, gateway, high needs, pre-requisite, and/or larger courses. While this instructional community has a large impact early on in students’ academic careers, they typically receive less support, guidance, and funding on college campuses. As such, many lack the time, energy, and resources to engage in professional development. A product of this discrepancy is that this population also receives less attention in the research literature. As a result, knowledge gaps surrounding the impact and development of this instructional community compound inequity in the students they serve. The expected outcomes for this project include quality instructional and culturally engaging professional development and improved academic outcomes. The question project proposes to answer is, will adequate funding, intentional support, and quality training in evidence-based and culturally engaging practices for the less privileged STEM instructional community (e.g., instructors, teaching assistants, and tutors/mentors) improve college success outcomes in the targeted courses? The project proposes to answer this question by offering competitive stipends and scholarships for the STEM instructional community to engage with three tiers of evidence-based, culturally engaging professional development. The project uses an intersectionality framework to inform professional development design, data collection, and data analysis. A recursive, action-oriented, mixed-method research emphasis will be employed based on academic outcomes, classroom observations, cultural engagement surveys, and qualitative contextualized inquiry for the continual improvement and success of the program and students. This project tackles a specific need identifiable by academic success data, one which promises to both have an immediate and direct impact on equitable student success at our institution. 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.