Cohort-Based Interdisciplinary Learning to Increase Retention and Graduation Rates of Undergraduate Students in Science, Technology, and Mathematics

该项目将通过支持具有经验证的经济需求的高成就，低收入学生的保留和毕业，促进国家对熟练科学家，数学家和技术人员的需求。 该项目由斯特森大学领导，这是一所位于佛罗里达中部的四年制私立大学。这个为期五年的项目将为32名攻读生物化学、化学、计算机科学、环境科学、数学、分子生物学或物理学学士学位的全日制学生提供奖学金。每年将招募两批16名学生，每个学生将获得长达四年的奖学金支持。该项目旨在通过让学生参与新颖的STEM丰富的跨学科课程来提高学位完成率。 该课程将强调同伴互动，基于项目的学习，社区伙伴关系，数学解决问题的能力，技术素养，专业写作和演讲技巧。学者也将有机会获得指导，辅导和职业咨询。招聘计划强调了从不同人群中发现学术天赋的重要性，从而扩大了获得STEM教育的机会。该项目的总体目标是增加低收入，高成就且有经济需求的本科生的STEM学位。该项目的具体目标包括增加学者的第一至第二年保留，毕业率，研究生安置在研究生学习或劳动力在一年内完成学位。该项目的范围受到最初在布兰代斯大学开发的成功教学实验的启发，该实验发现，专注于STEM研究的封闭队列模型导致了对学位完成的保留和坚持，特别是来自STEM中没有公平代表的群体的学生。该项目将跟踪学者在传统STEM课程中与STEM同龄人一起的进展。 这种分析的目的是研究导航一系列课程的影响，作为一个紧密联系的队列中的成员，所有参与者积极和有目的地参与一个共同的跨学科通识教育核心，最终以社区为基础的研究项目和顶点研究经验。 将评估创新课程对学习，动机和坚持完成学位的有效性，并注意识别与学习和保留改善相关的元素。在整个五年期项目中，一名独立的外部评估人员将结合在线调查、访谈和参与者数据，审查和记录项目成果、成就和经验教训。如果该项目成功，大学打算在赠款期限之后维持和扩大这一举措的积极成果，扩大其在大学内的更广泛影响。将通过在区域和国家高等教育会议以及具体学科专业会议上的介绍分享从该项目中吸取的经验教训，从而将该项目的影响扩大到联合国大学以外。该项目由NSF的科学，技术，工程和数学奖学金计划资助，该计划旨在增加低收入学术人才的数量，这些学生表现出经济需求，并获得STEM领域的学位。它还旨在改善未来STEM工作者的教育，并产生关于低收入学生的学术成功，保留，转移，毕业和学术/职业道路的知识。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, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with verified financial need. The project is led by Stetson University, a private four-year university in Central Florida. The five-year project will provide scholarships to 32 different full-time students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in biochemistry, chemistry, computer science, environmental science, math, molecular biology, or physics. Two annual cohorts of 16 students will be recruited, and each student will receive up to four years of scholarship support. The project seeks to enhance degree completion by engaging the student cohorts in a novel STEM-enriched, interdisciplinary curriculum. This curriculum will emphasize peer-interaction, project-based learning, community partnerships, mathematical problem-solving skills, technological literacy, and professional writing and presentation skills. Scholars will also have access to mentoring, tutoring, and career counseling. The recruitment plan emphasizes the importance of identifying academically talented, low-income students from diverse populations, thereby broadening access to STEM educational opportunities.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. Specific aims of the project include increasing Scholars' first to second year retention, graduation rates, and post-graduate placement in graduate studies or the workforce within one year of degree completion. The scope of this project is inspired by a successful pedagogical experiment originally developed at Brandeis University, which found that a closed-cohort model focused on STEM study led to enhanced retention and persistence to degree completion, especially among students from groups that are not equitably represented in STEM. The project will track the progress of Scholars alongside peer STEM cohorts in a traditional STEM curriculum. This analysis will be designed to examine the impact of navigating a series of courses as members of a close-knit cohort in which all participants actively and purposefully engage in a common interdisciplinary general education core that culminates in a community-based research project and a capstone research experience. The effectiveness of the innovative curriculum on learning, motivation, and persistence toward degree completion will be evaluated, with attention to identifying elements that correlate with improvements in learning and retention. Throughout the five-year project, an independent external evaluator will examine and document project outcomes, accomplishments, and lessons learned using a combination of online surveys, interviews, and participant data. If the project is successful, the University intends to sustain and expand the positive outcomes of this initiative beyond the grant term, extending its broader impacts within the University. Lessons learned from the project will be shared through presentations at regional and national higher education conferences, as well as discipline-specific professional conferences, thereby extending the broader impacts of the project beyond the University. 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.