Broadening Participation and Increasing the Success of Low-Income Students in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics: A Knowledge Exchange Workshop

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This multi-disciplinary academic brokering workshop brings together Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) faculty and administrators and researchers who study higher education to address issues of financial, academic, and student support that broaden the participation and success of low-income students pursuing degrees and careers in STEM. The central purpose of the Knowledge Exchange is to develop shared approaches to generating knowledge, measuring, and describing successful evidence-based strategies to accelerate knowledge generation, and systemic and sustainable change in STEM education at the post-secondary education level. The project leverages and builds upon the efforts and infrastructures of two organizational activities of the Association of American Colleges & Universities: Project Kaleidoscope (AAC&U PKAL) and STEM Central, whose combined emphasis is on improving STEM education in higher education. The expected outcome of the workshop is to increase and strengthen the development of collaborations and formation of a community among educational/social science researchers, discipline-based researchers, and STEM faculty and administrators - committed to examining and addressing the issues associated with broadening participation and increasing the success of low income students, who are pursing associate, baccalaureate, and graduate degrees in STEM and seeking entry into the STEM workforce. The evaluation of the effort has two aims: the first examines the extent of knowledge exchange that occurs between a diverse group of invited participants; and the second considers the quality of the information being made available to the wider STEM education community and its capacity to impact STEM teaching behavior. The mixed method outcomes-based evaluation is guided by prior research into how knowledge is exchanged within interdisciplinary groups. To that end, the evaluation of the Knowledge Exchange will assess the degree to which the project is able to facilitate the exchange of successful strategies relevant to the undergraduate education of low-income STEM students and the subsequent implementation of those strategies.