Improving Transfer Student Outcomes Through Linked Learning Communities in Math and Science

这个项目将有助于满足国家对熟练的科学家、数学家、工程师和技术人员的需求。它将通过支持在加州大型社区学院Diablo Valley college获得经济需求的高成就低收入学生的保留和毕业来实现这一目标。Diablo Valley College的学生转学到四年制大学的比率比全国平均水平高出67%。即便如此，该学院的低收入STEM学生仍在努力平衡他们的经济挑战和教育承诺。该项目将通过向30名攻读土木、电气与计算机或机械工程、自然科学、数学、生物和物理等专业副学士学位的学生提供奖学金来满足这一需求。这些奖学金获得者将以10名学生为一组，获得最多三年的奖学金支持，从他们进入学院的STEM课程开始，一直延伸到他们转到四年制课程。除奖学金外，该项目还将通过一个相互关联的学习社区为学者提供支持。这个学习社区将包括他们的数学和科学教师，学生保留专家和教师导师。预期这项支持将促进学者和学院员工之间的社区关系，同时提供专业资源以满足学者的个人需求。项目团队预测，这种支持模式将提高学生的积极性，为成功转学做好准备。社区大学是低收入和弱势学生接受高等教育的一个常见切入点。因此，通过解决STEM课程路径早期出现的共同摩擦点，该项目可以为更多样化和更具代表性的STEM劳动力做出贡献。该项目的总体目标是提高有经济需求的低收入、高成就本科生的STEM学位完成率。该项目将研究综合队列模型和课程配对教学方法如何解决学生在学术、社会、专业和机构领域的整合经验。该项目将调查这些不同的融合经历如何影响社区大学生的基础STEM课程的成功、坚持、毕业和转学，特别关注传统上在STEM中代表性不足的群体的学生。假设是，学生群体彼此之间以及与指导教师合作伙伴之间的凝聚力将提供更有意义的早期融合体验，从而提高学生在早期基础STEM课程中的成功。这种增加的成功将转化为增强的持久性和转移率。该项目将通过学生日记、焦点小组和学生成果数据的结果，探索支持模式的经济和社会效益的影响。通过混合方法，该项目计划生成丰富的定性数据，从而进一步了解提高两年制大学学生留校率和持久性的因素。项目领导团队将通过专业发展活动以及州和国家会议在当地传播重要的发现、方法和工具。项目评估活动将评估关联学习模式在改善学生成绩、持久性和转移率方面的有效性，学院实施学习社区模式的有效性，以及利用知识生成和传播工作来转移知识的程度。该项目由美国国家科学基金会的科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金项目资助，旨在增加有经济需求的低收入学术天才学生在STEM领域获得学位的人数。它还旨在改善未来STEM工作者的教育，并为低收入学生提供有关学业成功、留校、转学、毕业和学术/职业道路的知识。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will contribute to the national need for skilled scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians. It will do so by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with verified financial need at a large California community college, Diablo Valley College. The transfer rate of Diablo Valley College students into four-year universities is 67% higher than the national average. Even so, low-income STEM students at the College struggle to balance their financial challenges with their educational commitments. This project will address this need by giving scholarships to 30 different students who are pursuing Associate degrees in Civil, Electrical & Computer, or Mechanical Engineering, Natural Science, Mathematics, Biology, and Physics. The Scholars will enter in cohorts of 10 students and receive up to three years of scholarship support, beginning with their entry into a STEM pathway at the College and extending to their transfer to a four-year program. In addition to scholarships, the project will support Scholars through a linked learning community. This learning community will include their math and science instructors, a student retention specialist, and faculty mentors. It is expected that this support will foster community among the Scholars and the College staff, while providing professional resources to meet Scholars’ individual needs. The project team predicts that this model of support will lead to increased student motivation and preparation for successful transfer. Community colleges are a frequent entry point into higher education for low-income and underrepresented students. Thus, by addressing common points of attrition that occur early in STEM curriculum pathways, this project can contribute to a more diverse and representative STEM workforce.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. The project will study how a comprehensive cohort model and course-pairing method of instruction may address a student’s integration experiences across academic, social, professional, and institutional domains. The project will investigate how these different integration experiences impact community college students' foundational STEM course success, persistence, graduation, and transfer, with particular attention to students from groups traditionally underrepresented in STEM. The hypothesis is that the cohesion of the student cohort with each other and with mentoring faculty partners will provide more meaningful early integration experiences that, in turn, increase student success in early foundational STEM coursework. This increased success will then translate to enhanced persistence and transfer rates. The project will explore the impacts of the financial and social benefits of the support model through results from student journaling, focus groups, and student outcome data. Through its mixed-methods approach, the project plans to generate rich qualitative data that can advance understanding of factors that increase student retention and persistence at two-year colleges. The project leadership team will disseminate critical findings, methods, and tools locally through professional development activities as well as at state and national conferences. Project evaluation activities will assess the effectiveness of the linked learning model in improving student outcomes, persistence, and transfer rates, the College’s effectiveness in implementing the learning community model, and the extent to which knowledge generation and dissemination efforts were used to transfer knowledge. This project is funded by NSF’s Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of low-income academically talented students with demonstrated financial need who earn degrees in STEM fields. It also aims to improve the education of future STEM workers, and to generate knowledge about academic success, retention, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways of low-income students.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.