Improving STEM Degree Completion with Professional Development to Support Inclusive and Equitable Classroom Practices

在“改善本科STEM教育：西班牙裔服务机构计划”（HSI计划）的支持下，该项目旨在通过解决对学生群体完成STEM学位产生负面影响的环境因素，促进机构转型。该项目将提供一系列研讨会，通过考虑对系统性问题和学业成功障碍的研究，促进STEM领域的包容性。该项目将通过为教师和管理人员提供活动、练习和促进研究文献的讨论来研究与他们自己和学生在该机构的生活经历相关的社会和文化因素，从而寻求解决学位完成差异的问题。该项目还将利用校园现有的努力，旨在创造更具包容性的学术空间。通过采取以合作研究为导向的方法与教师和管理人员合作，该项目将寻求提供其他机构可以遵循的流程。为了直接解决文化在课堂上的重要性，该项目将采用混合方法研究设计，并将多会议的教师专业发展系列整合到更广泛的校园社区中，为教师提供一个课程，以促进他们学习空间的包容性和公平性。三个总体目标指导这个项目。首先是为地方和国家数据打下坚实的基础，这些数据与持续和保留方面的差异有关，将用于为课堂上的参与者的实践和行为提供信息。第二是提高对STEM学生社会和文化地位的认识。第三是修改课堂实践和政策，以提高学生的参与度和成功。项目团队将探讨几个研究问题。STEM学生认为，改善课堂氛围需要考虑哪些社会和文化因素？参与项目活动对教师在课堂上的多样性和包容性观念有什么影响？教师参与项目如何促进循证包容性教学的实施？该项目的关键激励因素是解决在STEM学位完成差异中表现出来的系统性不平等，并与全国各地的hsi共享方法、数据和发现。传播工作将包括一个项目网站，用于分享相关的项目信息，多种研究出版物和报告，一个关于创建包容性学术空间的研究会议，以及与NSF INCLUDES网络中现有项目的战略联系。HSI计划旨在加强本科STEM教育，扩大STEM参与，并在HSI进行能力建设。考虑到hsi的多样性和背景，实现这些目标需要创新的方法来激励机构和社区转型，并促进基础研究(1)关于参与式学生学习，(2)关于如何有效地使STEM多样化和增加参与，以及(3)提高我们对如何在hsi建立机构能力的理解。HSI计划支持的项目也将借鉴这些方法，为如何实现这些目标提供新的知识。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。

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program (HSI Program), this project aims to facilitate institutional transformation by addressing environmental factors that negatively influence STEM degree completion for groups of students. The project will offer a series of workshops that promote inclusivity in STEM fields by considering research on systemic issues and barriers to academic success. The project will seek to address degree completion disparities by providing faculty and administrators with activities, exercises, and facilitated discussions of research literature to examine social and cultural factors associated with their own and their students' lived experiences at the institution. The project will also leverage existing efforts on campus that aim to create more inclusive academic spaces. By taking a collaborative research-oriented approach to working with faculty and administrators, the project will seek to provide processes that other institutions can follow.To directly address the importance of culture in the classroom, the project will employ a mixed methods research design, and a multi-session faculty professional development series integrated into the broader campus community, that provides faculty with a curriculum that will advance inclusion and equity in their learning spaces. Three overarching goals guide this project. First is to lay a solid foundation of local and national data related to disparities in persistence and retention that will be used to inform participant practices and behaviors in the classroom. Second is to increase awareness of the social and cultural locations of STEM students. Third is to modify classroom practices and policies in order to increase student engagement and success. Several research questions will be explored by the project team. According to STEM students, what social and cultural factors need to be considered to improve the classroom climate? What is the impact of participation in project activities on faculty conceptions of diversity and inclusion in the classroom? How does faculty participation in the project lead to increased implementation of evidence-based inclusive teaching? The key motivating factors for this project are to address systemic inequity that is manifested in STEM degree completion disparities and to share methods, data, and findings with HSIs across the country. Dissemination efforts will include a project website for sharing pertinent project information, multiple research publications and presentations, a research conference on creating inclusive academic spaces, and strategic connections with existing programs that are part of the NSF INCLUDES Network. 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.