Critical-Juncture, STEM Educational Innovations Driven by Holistic, Integrative Evaluation Systems

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The Xavier University of Louisiana I-CUBED program will focus on two of the I-CUBED program's integrative themes, namely, the critical educational junctures and broadening participation in STEM disciplines. The program will integrate and enhance the University's suite of core STEM bridge programs, which serve to attract underrepresented minority students into STEM fields and assist them in the transition from their high school studies through their first year of college. The project proposes to provide a new model for integrating and assessing "bridge" programs at the institution that have been successful especially in graduating African American students with STEM degrees. Overall goal of the project is to effectively connect, integrate and evaluate a core set of STEM bridge programs at Xavier and the summer/freshman year learning environment in STEM at the institution. This would be achieved by increasing collaboration and communication among faculty, increasing faculty access and exposure to resources and research in STEM education development, providing assessment and evaluation systems for STEM education development, and stimulating research on and information dissemination of same. Innovative, transferable instructional strategies and assessment models will be developed and fully tested. The program will begin to change the institutional culture of the university, breaking down departmental barriers and developing an environment of cooperation and collaboration based on state of the art planning and assessment systems. Xavier's I-CUBED program will use its nationally successful mechanisms for dissemination of STEM programs, to share program results throughout the higher education community.