Collaborative Research: TRAIN (TRAnsfer to Interdisciplinary Natural sciences): A Community College-University Consortium to Increase Community College Student Transfer and Success

转入跨学科自然科学（TRAIN）计划支持从社区学院到亚利桑那州立大学新学院毕业的学生。TRAIN的学生在社区学院获得奖学金和一套强大的支持结构，然后无缝地转入亚利桑那州立大学。学生来自凤凰城、南山和格伦代尔社区学院（所有hsi），其中约85%的学生被认为是传统上在STEM领域代表性不足的个人。除了奖学金支持外，学生还可以从与教师导师的接触、专业建议、同伴指导、辅导、研究经验和参与基于群体的活动中受益。真实的、以职业为中心的经历巩固了队列的形成；学生们有各种各样的机会，如本科研究、实习、志愿者机会和实地考察。学生们将这些真实的经历写在博客上，并将其与自己的教育和职业发展联系起来。学生和教师导师每周在博客上发表评论，使这个群体保持联系，并有助于建立一个强大的同伴教学和支持网络。TRAIN计划将利用程序化分析的增值模型来增加STEM教育的集体知识，该模型将分析STEM中代表性不足的学生所面临的独特挑战，并确定干预措施和支持结构如何对不同的学生产生不同的影响。将按人口分组对支助结构进行成本/效益分析，并进行分析，以确定哪一种支助结构的投资回报最好。TRAIN更广泛的影响包括建设、评估和提高对全国最大的公立大学和拥有多个hsi的最大社区学院系统之一之间的创新转学管道的理解。这个项目可以改变社区大学学生在从两年制大学转到四年制大学期间获得支持的方式。

The TRAnsfer to Interdisciplinary Natural sciences (TRAIN) program supports students from community college through graduation from Arizona State University's New College.  TRAIN students begin with scholarships and a robust set of support structures at the community college, which follow them seamlessly through transfer to ASU.  Students are recruited from Phoenix, South Mountain, and Glendale Community Colleges (all HSIs), where approximately 85% identify as individuals traditionally underrepresented in STEM.   In addition to scholarship support, students benefit from engagement with faculty mentors, specialized advising, peer mentoring, tutoring, research experiences, and participation in cohort-based activities.  Authentic, career-focused experiences underpin the cohort formation; students are offered various opportunities, such as undergraduate research, internships, volunteer opportunities and field trips.  Students blog about these authentic experiences, relating them to their educational and career development.  Weekly blog comments by students and faculty mentors keep the cohort connected and help to develop a robust peer-teaching and support network.                 The TRAIN program will add to the collective knowledge in STEM education by utilizing a value-added model of programmatic analysis which will analyze the unique challenges faced by students underrepresented in STEM, and determine how interventions and support structures impact diverse students differently. A cost/benefit analysis of the support structures by sub-population will be undertaken and an analysis conducted to determine which yield the best returns on investment.  Broader impacts of TRAIN include the construction, evaluation and improved understanding of an innovative transfer pipeline between the nation's largest public university and one of its largest community college systems featuring several HSIs. This project could transform how community college students are supported during the attrition-prone transfer from two-year to four-year institutions.