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

该项目将通过支持缅因大学（University of Maine）保留和毕业表现出经济需求的成绩优异的低收入家庭学生，从而满足全国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。缅因大学的第一代农村学生比例很高。在为期六年的时间里，该项目将为30名攻读计算机科学学士学位的全日制学生提供奖学金。一年级学生将获得长达四年的奖学金支持，转学生将获得长达三年的支持。该项目旨在通过将奖学金与有效的支持活动（包括夏季桥梁项目）联系起来，提高学生对计算机科学的坚持；教师、同行和行业指导；学术及专业发展活动；生活-学习社区；还有关于第一年成功、专业技能和领导力的研讨会。课程改革将提高一年级学生的保留率和学生的整体职业准备。参与的学生将有机会利用他们的计算机技能，通过服务学习活动来改善当地社区。该项目将开发和评估一个学生成功的基础设施，可以作为缅因大学系统其他大学以及全国农村州大学项目的典范。具有解决重要和复杂问题能力的计算机专业毕业生将有利于地区和国家经济。该项目的总体目标是提高有经济需求的低收入、高成就本科生的STEM学位完成率。第一个项目目标是为计算机专业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专业发展信息和机会。第三个也是最后一个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的渠道，特别是女性、来自计算机研究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。这个项目将研究学生成功的障碍和减少障碍的有效策略。然而，关于如何将学术支持、指导、专业技能发展和服务学习相结合的项目能够成功地帮助这些学生克服这些障碍，缺乏足够的研究。具体的研究目的是：(1)通过检查学生对攻读计算机学位障碍的看法，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能减轻这些障碍的看法；(3)为支持服务和社区支持对学生成功的影响提供证据。自然探究研究设计将用于收集和分析来自焦点小组、访谈和调查的数据。本项目将采用参与式方法进行评估，从行政数据、焦点小组、对主要机构支持的访谈以及对学生、毕业生和机构合作伙伴的调查中收集信息。该项目的结果将通过国家计算机教育专业会议、技术教育工作者区域会议、项目网站和区域媒体提供。该项目由美国国家科学基金会的科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金项目资助，旨在增加有经济需求的低收入学术天才学生在STEM领域获得学位的人数。它还旨在改善未来STEM工作者的教育，并产生有关学业成功、转学、毕业和学术/职业道路的知识。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。

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.