HSI Implementation and Evaluation Project: Building a Problem-Solving Community of Scholars in STEM

在改进的本科生STEM教育：拉美裔服务机构(HSI计划)的支持下，这一Track 2：IEP旨在提高休斯顿大学未被充分代表的科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)专业的学生的成就率、保留率和学位持久度。尽管从高中过渡到大学对STEM学生来说仍然是一个挑战，但许多机构提供了各种方案来提高一年级的保留率，包括本科研究、课堂上的积极学习、生活和学习社区、夏令桥编程和同伴主导学习。然而，由于STEM学生通常在二年级注册关键的“入门”课程，因此二年级的保留率已成为一个非常令人担忧的问题，而在这些课程中实现成功的有针对性的编程往往是不可用的。对于在STEM专业和职业中代表性不足的群体来说，这可能更具挑战性，因为他们还努力在主要部门建立社区意识和归属感。休斯顿大学(UH)是一所指定的拉美裔、亚裔、美洲原住民和太平洋岛民服务机构，在《美国新闻》和《世界报道》学生种族多样性排名中名列前十。UH的这一项目将为STEM专业的新生提供支持，并培养一个学习社区，以促进对学位完成的坚持不懈。该项目的总体目标是通过实施循证干预和最佳实践来提高STEM学生的留存率，以增强学生的内容知识，培养他们的归属感，并加强他们的STEM认同感，以促进在大一之后取得成功。这将通过一个为期5周的问题解决学者社区桥梁计划(在一年级和二年级之间)实现，该计划让学生接触到二年级水平的“门户”课程内容，一个关于技能和社区建设的问题解决研讨会，以及通过Guaraned 4.0学习系统提供的支持，该系统将为STEM学生的成功提供量身定制的学习过程指导和反馈。该项目的结果将提供关于如何实施、扩大和维持支助方案的知识，以促进未被充分代表的少数族裔学生在STEM取得成功。它还将通过揭示与可能阻碍和促进HSI背景下代表性不足的STEM学生成功的因素有关的知识，为社区文化财富研究文献做出贡献。HSI计划旨在加强本科生STEM教育和HSI的能力建设。HSI计划支持的项目也将产生关于如何实现这些目标的新知识。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。

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Track 2: IEP aims to improve student success, retention, and degree persistence among underrepresented Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) majors at the University of Houston. While transitioning from high school to college remains a challenge for students in STEM, many institutions provide various programming for improving first-year retention rates, including undergraduate research, active learning in the classroom, living and learning communities, summer bridge programming, and peer-led learning. However, sophomore year retention has become a great concern for persistence since this is when STEM students typically enroll in key “gateway” courses, and targeted programming for achieving success in these courses is often times not available. For groups, who are underrepresented in STEM majors and careers, this may be more challenging as they also work to establish a sense of community and belonging in their major departments. The University of Houston (UH) is a designated Hispanic and Asian, Native American and Pacific Islander Serving institution and is ranked in the top ten by US News and World Report for student ethnic diversity. This program at UH will provide support for STEM majors beyond their freshmen year and foster a community of learners to promote persistence to degree completion. The overarching goal of this project is to improve STEM student retention by implementing evidence-based interventions and best practices to enhance students’ content knowledge, develop their sense of belonging, and strengthen their STEM identity to promote success beyond the freshman year. This will be accomplished through a 5-week Problem-Solving Community of Scholars bridge program (between freshmen and sophomore year) that exposes students to sophomore-level “gateway” course content, a problem-solving workshop for skills and community building, and support via the Guaranteed 4.0 Learning System which will provide tailored guidance and feedback on the process of learning for STEM student success. The results of this project will provide knowledge on how support programming can be implemented, scaled, and sustained for promoting underrepresented minority student success in STEM. It will also contribute to the Community Cultural Wealth research literature by uncovering knowledge related to factors that may inhibit and contribute to the success of underrepresented STEM students in a HSI context. The HSI Program aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also 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.