Planning Project: Improving Retention and the Quality of STEM Education and Research at Oakwood University

历史上的黑人学院和大学-本科生计划为设计，实施和评估战略的项目提供支持，这些战略可以导致全面的机构努力，以增加获得科学，技术，工程和数学（STEM）本科学位的学生人数，并通过加强STEM教育和研究来提高他们的准备质量。奥克伍德学院的这个为期两年的规划项目旨在通过制定一项计划来增加STEM中女性和代表性不足的少数民族的数量，该计划将招募，保留和研究生STEM学科。项目的主要重点是改变学校环境，让学生积极参与学习，并培养他们在学业上取得成功的技能。项目的总体目标是增加准备充分、经过竞争性培训的少数族裔STEM毕业生的数量，这些毕业生将继续攻读研究生课程或进入STEM工作队伍。传统的以讲座为基础和以教师为中心的教学策略已被证明不能有效地激发或保持学生对STEM学科的兴趣。Oakwood College将把基于证据的教学法，如学生中心/主动学习，同侪领导的团队学习（PLTL）和基于问题的学习，在看门人课程，以提高学生的学习和第一年的保留。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

The Historically Black Colleges and Universities - Undergraduate Program provides support for projects to design, implement, and assess strategies that can lead to comprehensive institutional efforts to increase the number of students receiving undergraduate degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and enhance the quality of their preparation by strengthening STEM education and research. This two-year planning project at Oakwood College seeks to increase the number of women and under-represented minorities in STEM by developing a program that will recruit, retain and graduate students in STEM disciplines. Transforming the institutional context to actively engage students in their learning and develop skills for them to succeed academically is a primary focus.The overall project goal is to increase the number of well-prepared, competitively trained minority STEM graduate who pursue graduate studies or enter the STEM workforce. Traditional lecture based and teacher-centered instructional strategies have been shown to not effectively motivate or retain students' interest in STEM disciplines. Oakwood College will incorporate evidence based pedagogies, such as Student Centered/Active Learning, Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) and Problem Based Learning, in gatekeeper courses to improve student learning and first-year retention.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.