Nebraska STEM Scholars: Improving Student Success through Scholarship and Support Services

该项目将为国家对受过良好教育的科学家、数学家、工程师和技术人员的需求做出贡献，支持高成就、低收入、有经济需求的学生留校并毕业于韦恩州立学院(WSC)。WSC是一所位于内布拉斯加州东北部的四年制农村公立学院。它是内布拉斯加州州立大学系统的一部分，为大约4200名学生提供服务。WSC的愿景是通过卓越的学习和学生的成功，在农村和社区生活中做出显着的改变。根据众议院于2021年5月通过的《农村STEM教育研究法案》的目标，该项目将具有独特的地位，能够提高内布拉斯加州东北部农村地区的能力，为学生提供高质量的STEM教育和STEM劳动力发展规划。特别是，在为期6年的时间里，该项目将资助18名来自农村社区的不同才华的低收入学生(3个不同的队列，每组6名学生)生物、化学或数学专业的4年奖学金。除了经济支持外，学生还将获得全面的课程和联合课程支持机会，旨在减少和消除STEM成功和完成学位的障碍。在最初阶段，学生将能够参加在大一开始之前的“科学成功周”，为他们接受严格的STEM教育做好准备，并开始在他们的同龄人学者群体中建立社区意识。其他支持机会将包括社区志愿服务、教师指导、实习、在校园生活两年、参与科学会议并在科学会议上发表演讲、特别职业咨询、补充指导以及帮助学生确定和开展研究项目的教师指导。作为该项目的另一个组成部分，教师将能够参加学院流动暑期学院，该学院将提供循证教学方法的培训。项目调查员将传播与项目挑战和成功相关的成果和发现，特别是向努力支持低收入STEM学生的其他小型农村公共机构。为了提高低收入、高成就、有经济需求的本科生的STEM学位完成率，该项目将实现几个目标。首先是消除资金障碍，调整、实施和分析一套全面的循证战略，以建设支持、留住和毕业该项目的农村生物、化学和数学学者的能力。第二是加强区域STEM劳动力队伍，为学生提供特殊的职业准备机会，为他们通过就业或攻读高级学位做出贡献做好准备。第三，通过实施、测试和研究项目评估战略，系统地支持STEM学生的学业和职业道路，从而为知识库做出贡献。第四，将与促进学生成功的支持和干预相关的结果和调查结果传播给其他致力于支持有才华的低收入STEM学生的机构。为了实现这些目标，项目评价旨在采用定性和定量的方法，深入了解项目战略的效力，为项目提供形成性和总结性反馈，并确定有效的反馈以供推广，特别是在其他农村环境中。与此相关，调查方向将填补文献中的空白，并加强农村第一代、低收入、有学业天赋的学生特有的有效和实际干预措施的知识库。该项目由NSF的科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金项目资助，该项目旨在增加在STEM领域获得学位的低收入学术天才学生的数量。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业成功、留住、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优势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 well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at Wayne State College (WSC). WSC is a four-year, rural, public college in located northeastern Nebraska. It is part of the Nebraska state college system and serves approximately 4,200 students. WSC's vision is to make a notable difference in rural and community life through learning excellence and student success. Following an aim of the Rural STEM Education Research Act passed by the House of Representatives in May, 2021, the project will be uniquely positioned to increase the capacity of rural northeastern Nebraska to provide quality STEM education and STEM workforce development programming to students. In particular, over its 6-year duration, this project will fund 4-year scholarships to 18 distinct talented, low-income students from rural communities (3 different cohorts of 6 students each) majoring in biology, chemistry, or mathematics. In addition to financial support, students will be provided with comprehensive curricular and co-curricular support opportunities aimed at reducing and removing barriers to STEM success and degree completion. At the initial stage, students will be able to attend a “Succeeding in the Sciences Week” prior to the start of their freshman year to prepare them for the rigors of a STEM education and begin to build a sense of community among their cohort scholar group. Additional support opportunities will include community volunteering, faculty mentoring, internships, on campus living for 2 years, participation and presentations at scientific conferences, special career counseling, supplemental instruction, and faculty mentoring to help students identify and conduct research projects. As another component of the project, faculty will be able to attend a Faculty Mobile Summer Institute, which will provide training in evidence-based teaching methods. Project investigators will disseminate outcomes and findings related to project challenges and successes, especially to other small public rural institutions striving to support low-income STEM students.To increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need, the project will pursue several goals. First is to remove financial barriers and to adapt, implement, and analyze a comprehensive set of evidence-based strategies to build capacity to support, retain, and graduate the project's rural biology, chemistry, and mathematics scholars. Second is to enhance the regional STEM workforce by providing special career preparation opportunities for students to prepare them to contribute through employment or pursuit of advanced degrees. Third is to contribute to the knowledge base by implementing, testing, and studying through project evaluation strategies for systematically supporting student academic and career pathways in STEM. And fourth is to disseminate outcomes and findings related to the supports and interventions that promote student success to other institutions working to support talented, low-income STEM students. Aimed at addressing the goals, project evaluation is designed to employ qualitative and quantitative methods to provide insights into the efficacy of project strategies to provide formative and summative feedback to the project and to identify the effective ones for replication, especially in other rural settings. Related to this, the directions of investigation will address gaps in the literature and strengthen the knowledge base on impactful and practical interventions unique to rural, first-generation, low-income, academically talented students. 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.