Increasing Retention and Success of Computing Students through Curriculum Development, Community Support, and Service Learning

通过课程开发、社区支持和服务学习提高计算机专业学生的保留率和成功率

• 批准号: 2221472
• 负责人: Penny Rheingans
• 金额: $ 149.99万
• 依托单位: University of Maine
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-10-15 至 2028-09-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2221472&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Increasing; Retention; Success; Computing; Students

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 the University of Maine, a university with a high percentage of students who are first-generation and come from rural regions. Over its six-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 30 unique full-time students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in computer science. First- year students will receive up to four years of scholarship support and transfer students will receive up to three years of support. This project aims to increase student persistence in computer science by linking scholarships with effective supporting activities, including a summer bridge program; faculty, peer, and industry mentoring; academic and professional development activities; a living-learning community; and seminars on first-year success, professional skills, and leadership. Curriculum changes will be made to improve first-year student retention and students’ overall career-readiness. Participating students will have the opportunity to use their computing skills to improve local communities through service learning activities. This project will develop and evaluate a student success infrastructure that can serve as a model for programs at other University of Maine System universities, as well as universities in rural states across the nation. Computing graduates with the ability to solve important and complex problems will benefit the regional and national economy.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. The first project objective is to establish a support structure and community-building scholar model for computing majors to help them succeed. A second objective is to provide academic and professional development information and opportunities for the scholars. The third and final objective is to strengthen relationships with community organizations to expand the pipeline of students pursuing computing majors, especially women, students from group underrepresented in their study of computing, first-generation students, and those from rural backgrounds. This project will examine the barriers to student success and effective strategies to reduce them. However, there is a lack of sufficient research about how programs combining academic supports, mentoring, professional skill development, and service learning can successfully help such students in overcoming these barriers. The specific research aims are to: (1) contribute to understanding of low-income students in computer science fields by examining student perceptions of barriers to pursuing computing degrees; (2) determine student perceptions about whether the project activities can mitigate these barriers; and (3) generate evidence about the impact of support services and community support on student success. A naturalistic inquiry research design will be used to collect and analyze data from focus groups, interviews, and surveys. This project will be evaluated using a participatory approach to gather information from administrative data, focus groups, interviews with key institutional supports, and surveys of students, graduates, and institutional partners. Results of this project will be made available through national professional conferences on computing education, regional meetings of technology educators, a project website, and regional media. 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, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways.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.

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，方法是支持高成就、低收入、有经济需求的学生留在缅因州大学并毕业。缅因州大学是一所大学，第一代学生比例很高，来自农村地区。在为期六年的时间里，该项目将为30名正在攻读计算机科学学士学位的全日制学生提供奖学金。一年级学生将获得最多四年的奖学金支持，转校生将获得最多三年的支持。该项目旨在通过将奖学金与有效的支持活动联系起来，提高学生在计算机科学方面的坚持性，包括暑期桥项目；教师、同行和行业指导；学术和专业发展活动；生活学习社区；以及关于第一年成功、专业技能和领导力的研讨会。将进行课程改革，以提高一年级学生的保留率，并提高学生对职业生涯的整体准备。参与活动的学生将有机会利用他们的计算技能，通过服务学习活动改善当地社区。该项目将开发和评估一个学生成功基础设施，该基础设施可以作为缅因州其他大学系统的项目以及全国农村州的大学的典范。有能力解决重要和复杂问题的计算机毕业生将造福于地区和国家经济。该项目的总体目标是增加低收入、高成就、有经济需求的本科生的STEM学位完成率。第一个项目的目标是为计算机专业的学生建立一个支持结构和社区建设学者模式，以帮助他们取得成功。第二个目标是为学者提供学术和职业发展信息和机会。第三个也是最终目标是加强与社区组织的关系，以扩大攻读计算机专业的学生，特别是女性、在计算机学习中代表性不足的群体的学生、第一代学生和来自农村背景的学生的渠道。本项目将研究学生成功的障碍以及减少障碍的有效策略。然而，关于结合学术支持、指导、专业技能发展和服务学习的计划如何成功地帮助这些学生克服这些障碍，缺乏足够的研究。具体的研究目标是：(1)通过考察学生对攻读计算机学位的障碍的感知，有助于了解计算机科学领域的低收入学生；(2)确定学生对项目活动是否可以缓解这些障碍的感知；以及(3)产生关于支持服务和社区支持对学生成功的影响的证据。将使用自然主义的探究性研究设计来收集和分析来自焦点小组、访谈和调查的数据。将使用参与式方法对该项目进行评估，以从行政数据、重点小组、与关键机构支持人员的访谈以及对学生、毕业生和机构合作伙伴的调查中收集信息。该项目的成果将通过关于计算机教育的国家专业会议、地区技术教育人员会议、项目网站和地区媒体公布。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，并产生关于学术成功、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。