Freshman Intervention and Retention in STEM Through Scientific Literacy (FIRST SL)

莫尔豪斯学院将开展一项改进本科STEM教育（IUSE）实施和研究项目，目的是利用高度创新的实用科学素养课程来提高STEM专业新生的保留率。特别强调的是第二学期有可能转到非STEM专业的STEM专业新生。这将通过以下方式实现：1)在莫尔豪斯学院的生活学习中心-定向和培训计划中，为所有STEM专业的新生提供科学素养讲习班/研讨会；2)通过书面评估和焦点小组，确定可能考虑转到非STEM专业的第二学期STEM专业新生；3)将这些有风险的第二学期新生纳入一个队列，让他们接触先进的科学素养最佳实践，旨在让他们留在STEM专业。该项目的教育研究议程是确定项目活动在保留STEM专业学生方面的有效性，作为一种为新生干预和保留STEM专业的最佳实践知识库做出贡献的手段。提高STEM的学生留存率最终会提高美国的科学劳动力和全球经济竞争力。

An Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) implementation and research project will be conducted at Morehouse College with the goal of utilizing a highly innovative utilitarian scientific literacy curriculum to increase retention of freshman STEM majors. Special emphasis will be placed on second semester freshman STEM majors who are at-risk of changing to a non-STEM major. This will be accomplished by: 1) presenting scientific literacy workshop/seminars to all freshman STEM majors at Morehouse College in their Living Learning Center - Orientation and Training program; 2) identifying second semester freshman STEM majors who may be considering changing to a non-STEM major using written assessments and focus groups; 3) enrolling these at-risk second semester freshmen in a cohort and exposing them to advanced scientific literacy best practices that are designed to retain them in the STEM major. The educational research agenda of this project is to determine the efficacy of the programmatic activities in retention of STEM majors as a means of contributing to the knowledge base concerning best practices for freshman intervention and retention in STEM. Increasing student retention in STEM ultimately increases America's scientific workforce and global economic competitiveness.