Building Capacity: Transforming STEM Undergraduate Education through Academic Literacy, Mentoring, and Professional Development

改善本科STEM教育：西班牙裔服务机构计划（HSI计划）旨在加强本科STEM教育并建立HSI的能力。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。德克萨斯大学圣安东尼奥分校（UTSA）的这个项目将通过开发新的课程和教学方法来提高学生的毅力和成功，从而推进HSI项目的目标。该项目将实施一个教师发展框架，帮助教师：1)将他们的课程内容与学生的背景知识联系起来；2)展示上下级课程之间的联系；3)帮助学生培养能够引导他们进入STEM职业的职业身份。该项目将侧重于培养学生理解复杂科学语言的能力，包括文字和图形、图表等视觉表现形式。预期的结果是，教师将在创新的、以证据为基础的教学方法方面培养专业知识，以增强学生的学习能力，学生将培养在STEM职业中取得成功所需的市场技能。该项目的总体目标是开发新的教学方法和相关的课程改革，明确关注学术素养和内容能力的交叉。这一目标将通过应用循证教学方法，指导STEM教师改善学生学习，以及提供学生指导和专业发展经验来实现。该项目包括以下具体任务：1)培养和提高STEM本科生对学术素养和核心能力的综合理解；2)建立跨学科的专业发展课程研究小组，教师参与可持续的教学和课程变革；3)在低年级和高年级课程之间调整STEM课程；4)为大二和大三的STEM学生制定近同伴指导计划；5)为STEM学生提供研究机会和专业发展活动；6)评估院校课程重新设计的相关性和有效性。这些拟议的活动侧重于低级和高级本科课程之间的关键过渡，这是STEM学生保留和毕业的关键过渡。此外，合作的STEM和教育教师之间将建立创新的跨学科伙伴关系。这些伙伴关系将建立由教师组成的课程研究小组，明确关注学术素养在发展强大的大学水平STEM教学中的作用。拟议的计划建立在UTSA致力于增加STEM劳动力多样性的基础上。该计划是一种综合方法，旨在增加从UTSA工程和科学学院毕业的未被充分代表的少数民族本科生人数。预计该计划将通过提高他们的保留率，批判性思维技能，专业知识，自我效能感，毕业率以及专业和劳动力准备，使UTSA的STEM本科生受益。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。

The Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program (HSI Program) aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI program will also generate new knowledge about how to achieve these aims. This project at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) will advance the aims of the HSI Program by developing new curricula and methods of instruction that increase student persistence and success. The project will implement a faculty development framework that helps faculty: 1) connect their course content to students' background knowledge; 2) demonstrate connections between lower level and upper level courses; and 3) help students develop professional identities that can lead them into STEM careers. The project will focus on developing students' ability to understand the complex language of science, including words and visual representations, such as graphs, charts, and diagrams. Expected outcomes are that faculty will develop expertise in innovative, evidence-based teaching approaches that enhance student learning, and that students will develop marketable skills needed for success in STEM careers. The overall goal of this project is to develop new methods of instruction and associated curricular change with an explicit focus on the intersection of academic literacy and content competencies. This goal will be achieved through the application of evidence-based teaching approaches, coaching of STEM faculty to improve student learning, and by providing student mentoring and professional development experiences. The project includes the following specific tasks: 1) Developing and improving undergraduate STEM students' integrated understanding of academic literacy and core competencies; 2) Creating interdisciplinary professional development lesson study groups of instructors to engage in sustainable instructional and curricular change; 3) Aligning STEM curricula between lower and upper division courses; 4) Developing a near-peer mentoring program for sophomore and junior level STEM students; 5) Providing research opportunities and professional development activities for STEM students; and 6) Evaluating the relevance and effectiveness of the institutional curricular redesign. These proposed activities focus on the critical transition between lower and upper level undergraduate courses, a key transition for student retention and graduation in STEM. In addition, innovative cross-disciplinary partnerships will be established between collaborating STEM and Education faculty. These partnerships will create lesson study groups of instructors that draw explicit attention to the role of academic literacy in the development of strong university-level STEM teaching and learning. The proposed plan builds on the dedication of UTSA to increasing diversity in the STEM workforce. This plan is an integrated approach to increase the number of undergraduate underrepresented minorities who graduate from the UTSA Colleges of Engineering and Sciences. It is expected that the program will benefit STEM undergraduates at UTSA by increasing their retention rates, critical thinking skills, professional knowledge, self-efficacy, graduation rates, and professional and workforce preparedness.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.