HSI Institutional Transformation Project: Improving Undergraduate STEM Education Through Family-Centered Pedagogy

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With support from the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE): Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Track 3 Institutional Transformation Project (ITP) aims to evaluate and implement a novel Family-Centered Theory of Change Model for enhancing Latinx Students’ success in undergraduate STEM disciplines. Specifically, the project will dismantle deficit thinking systems, policy, and practices that continue to marginalize Latinx students from STEM fields. This project is interconnected with the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) as the organization and the Rio Grande Valley as the community being served. UTRGV is one of the largest “enrolling” HSI and this project will transform it to a truly Hispanic “Serving” Institution utilizing the proposed Family-Centered Model for partnerships between higher education and families from the community. This will create learning opportunities in undergraduate STEM education, programming, infrastructure, and collaborations with other HSIs, such as the South Texas College in the Rio Grande Valley. By utilizing curricula, pedagogies, and learning frameworks that are typically used in the Mexican American Studies courses, this program will address diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) through the multidimensional intersectional framework for multiple social identities, domains of power, and historicity. Existing STEM courses in mathematics, chemistry and physics that are required for the General Education core will be revised to include a Family-Centered class project that is culturally relevant and addresses DEI in STEM disciplines paving the way towards higher student learning, persistence and degree attainment. The goal of this project is to increase Latinx STEM students’ institutional integration and sense of belonging to UTRGV and the Rio Grande Valley community by partnering with family leaders and community organizers to create educational opportunities and environments that capitalize on the students and families cultural wealth and assets. Research questions include: 1) how and to what extent do partnership dynamics between family and university leaders dismantle deficit thinking practices and policies; and 2) how and to what extent do family-centered projects impact students, families, and faculty. Data will be analyzed using a mixed methods approach. Qualitative and quantitative methods will be used to triangulate evidence found in the qualitative student, faculty, and community partners interviews, reflections, and in audiotaped and videotaped observations. Results of this study will be used as a basis for institutional transformation through the implementation of new curricula, pedagogies, and faculty development and evaluation processes. Findings will also be disseminated nationally through presentations and publications. The HSI Program aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education, broaden participation in STEM, and build capacity at HSIs. Achieving these aims, given the diverse nature and context of the HSIs, requires innovative approaches that incentivize institutional and community transformation and promote fundamental research (i) on engaged student learning, (ii) about what it takes to diversify and increase participation in STEM effectively, and (iii) that improves our understanding of how to build institutional capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also draw from these approaches to 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.