Building Undergraduate Capacity in STEM at a Hispanic Serving Institution utilizing Culturally-Relevant Instruction with Micro-Credentialing

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With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Track 1 project aims to create and analyze a supportive comprehensive system to build undergraduate student capacity in STEM fields at HSIs. The project will support underserved and underrepresented individuals in STEM to increase employability and representations in the workforce by (a) training higher-education STEM faculty and graduate teaching assistants in culturally-relevant instructional approaches, (b) digitizing assessments and increasing peer-tutoring for students, and (c) incorporating micro-credentialing and industry internships. The culturally-relevant instructional approach will be integrated into undergraduate core courses spanning multiple STEM disciplines for delivery of approximately 9,500 students annually. This project also aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs that typically may not receive high levels of funding. To this end, the investigators will work to transport the developed pedagogy through technical and instructional exchange activities including a summer training workshop conducted annually.The project aims to: (a) analyze the impact of culturally-relevant training for undergraduate faculty, graduate teaching assistants, and peer mentors related to learner achievement, engagement, and degree attainment; (b) employ and refine an assessment infrastructure to promote student learning, retention, advancement, and graduation at HSIs; (c) create an automated micro-credentialing tool that would provide access to community internships while developing student self-efficacy; and (d) develop culturally-relevant curricular materials to train STEM faculty, graduate teaching assistants, and peer tutors. The project will advance research related to culturally-relevant instructional activities in STEM, peer-tutoring, and experiential learning opportunities inclusive of micro-credentialing. Data collected in this research includes the following scales: General Engineering Self-Efficacy Scale (GESES), Culturally Responsive Teaching Self-Efficacy (CRTSE), and Culturally Responsive Teaching Outcome Expectancy (CRTOE). Additionally, focus groups and survey research of all participants will provide a robust information to inform STEM educational stakeholders.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.