HSI-SMART: STEM Model for Research and Teaching Undergraduate-intervention Program

在改进的本科生STEM教育：拉美裔服务机构(HSI计划)的支持下，这个Track 1项目旨在提高毕业率，缩短所有科学、数学和工程专业的学位完成时间，并缩小拉丁裔和非拉丁裔白人学生之间以及女性和男性学生之间的表现差距。HSI-STEM先进研究和教学模式(HSI-SMART)项目将把一套四种干预措施结合成一个完整的整体，跨越学生的整个本科职业生涯。该项目将：促进暑期咨询研讨会，以在学生第一学期之前建立师生关系，将适当的学生安排在关键的一年级入门课程中作为有偿学习助理，将学生置于有偿研究助学金中，并让学生参与课堂活动，以减少焦虑和增加归属感。与教授和同龄人的直接联系将有助于留住新学生，课堂学习助理将在最关键的阶段支持学生参与，学习和研究助学金将使学生与校园社区保持接触，并专注于他们的学科。该计划将创建一个自我传播的学生社区，因为Latinx和女性学生通过咨询研讨会和入门课程，并在即将毕业时回到学习和研究助理计划中。该项目将汇集所有STEM学科，通过将一套干预措施整合到一个连贯的培训和社区建设模式中，增加拉美裔和女性的参与、留住和成功。干预措施的有效性，虽然在其他方面得到了很好的证实，但对于拉丁裔和女性学生在STEM学位，特别是在HSI学位的坚持性方面，没有很好的记录。该项目将通过专门针对拉美裔学生和女性学生的问题来解决现有知识中的这一差距：以STEM为目标的夏季咨询课程是否会影响留住；针对学生焦虑和归属感的心理干预是否会影响入门课程的成绩和学位持久度；将近距离同行安排在入门课堂是否会影响学生和助学人员的表现；本科生参与研究是否同样有助于从新手向毕业生的成功过渡。由于该项目将从拉丁裔和女性学生群体中招募参与者，因此该项目假设所有这些干预措施都将有利于目标人群的归属感、学业表现和毕业率。该项目将平衡普遍干预措施和定量、对照研究方法，以衡量综合和单独干预措施对拉丁裔和女学生成功的重要性。这种可扩展、可评估和综合的STEM归属和成就模型将为STEM教育文献和实践添加关键的相关元素。更广泛地说，该项目将从根本上改变STEM学生体验的社会层面，从学生走进校园到他们毕业，创建和支持社区和包容，并将成为其他HSI学生成功和包容性社区建设的典范。HSI计划旨在加强本科生STEM教育和HSI的能力建设。HSI计划支持的项目也将产生关于如何实现这些目标的新知识。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Track 1 project aims to increase graduation rates and reduce the time to degree completion for all science, mathematics, and engineering majors and to reduce the performance gap existing between Latinx and non-Latinx White students as well as between female and male students. The HSI-STEM Model for Advancing Research and Teaching (HSI-SMART) project will combine a set of four interventions into an integrated whole that spans students' entire undergraduate careers. This project will: facilitate summer advising workshops to create student-faculty relationships before the students' first semester, place appropriate students in key first year gateway classes as paid learning assistants, place students in paid research assistantships, and engage students in classroom activities to reduce anxiety and increase sense of belonging. Direct connection to professors and peers will support the retention of new students, classroom learning assistants will support student participation at its most crucial stage, and both learning- and research-assistantships will keep students engaged with the campus community and focused on their discipline. This program will create a self-propagating student community as Latinx and female students move through the advising workshops and introductory courses and are looped back into the learning and research assistantship programs as they proceed toward graduation. This project will bring together all STEM disciplines to increase Latinx and female participation, retention, and success by integrating a set of interventions into a coherent training and community-building model. The efficacy of interventions, while otherwise well-established, is not well-documented for Latinx and female student persistence in STEM degrees, particularly at HSIs. The project will address this gap in existing knowledge by addressing questions specifically about Latinx and female students: whether STEM-targeted summer advising sessions affect retention; whether psychological interventions addressing student anxiety and sense of belonging influence introductory course achievement and degree persistence; whether placing near-peers in gateway classrooms affects performance of both students and learning assistant; and whether engaging in research as undergraduates likewise supports a successful transition from novice to graduate. As it will recruit participants from Latinx and female student populations, the project hypothesizes that all these interventions will benefit that target populations' sense of belonging, academic performance, and graduation rates. The project will balance universal interventions with quantitative, controlled-study approaches to measure the importance of the aggregate and isolated interventions in success of Latinx and female students. This scalable, assessable, and integrated model of STEM belonging and achievement will add a critically relevant element to STEM educational literature and practice. More broadly, the project will fundamentally change the social dimension of the STEM student experience by creating and supporting community and inclusion from the moment students walk onto campus until their graduation, and will serve as model for student success and inclusive community building at other HSIs. The HSI Program aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also generate new knowledge on how to achieve these aims.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.