Developing Engineering Instructional Faculty as Leaders of Educational Change at Hispanic-Serving Institutions

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With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Track 1 project focuses on enabling non-tenure-eligible, instructional faculty to further foster culturally responsive, evidence-based approaches in engineering education at Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs). Non-tenure-eligible Engineering Instructional Faculty (EIF) are an under-explored and under-supported population who play a critical role in students’ educational experiences within engineering. With the historical emphasis placed on faculty development and resources for tenure-track faculty, there is an untapped opportunity to amplify the existing efforts of EIF at HSIs to support an increasingly diverse student population. This project seeks to develop EIF as leaders of educational change who embrace and promote the use of culturally responsive, evidence-based instructional practices at HSIs. Towards this end, this project will partner with EIF to design Engineering Leadership Academies (ELA) - a self-sustaining, within- and cross-institutional faculty development model that equips EIF and amplifies their leadership of educational change at HSIs. Through professional development and coaching of approximately 80 EIF, the project will enrich a growing network of educational leaders at HSIs. These EIF will design educational initiatives for their campuses that seek to improve student learning and retention, with the potential to directly impact the education of over 1,800 engineering students throughout the project. In addition, the ELAs and the culminating National ELA conference will expand the reach of the faculty development by including participants from a diverse set of HSIs, including two- and four-year institutions as well as those who receive low levels of NSF funding. This project aims to (1) develop a rich understanding of the perspectives and experiences of EIF at HSIs, (2) define a framework for how to support educational change leadership development of EIF, and (3) identify learning experiences that support EIF leadership development, (4) design and implement ELAs to thereby (5) increase the use of innovative, culturally responsive, evidence-based teaching approaches in engineering education programs at HSIs. This multi-year project will use a variety of qualitative, quantitative, and participatory research methods embedded in a series of action research cycles. Each cycle will enable both the iterative development of the ELA and the inclusion of additional EIF from HSIs nationwide. This research will provide the engineering education and faculty development communities with a deep understanding of an under-explored and under-served population of faculty, specifically EIF at HSIs. The project findings will further expand models for developing teachers-as-leaders and engineering leadership to create a framework for sustainable engineering faculty leadership development. The design and implementation of the ELAs will make visible the features and necessary content of faculty development programs that promote educational leadership and innovation at HSIs. Broader dissemination of the findings at a National ELA Conference will enable EIF participants to share their educational innovations and associated research findings with a growing network of EIFs. 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.