Building Capacity: Building Bridges into Engineering and Computer Science

改善本科生STEM教育：西班牙裔服务机构计划(HSI计划)旨在加强本科生STEM教育，并在HSIS建设能力。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。威尔伯·莱特学院的这个项目将通过让有才华、准备不足的低收入学生攻读并完成工程学或计算机科学学士学位来推进HSI计划的目标。城市地区的公立学校很难让大量低收入家庭学生在数学和科学方面做好准备。因此，许多高中毕业生没有做好充分准备，不能继续接受需要量化或分析思维的进一步教育，也没有准备好加入美国劳动力大军，从事需要这些技能的工作。该项目旨在开发和实施途径、实践和干预措施，以支持学生在两个关键过渡时期在工程或计算机科学领域取得成功：从高中到社区大学，从社区学院到四年制大学。该项目计划部分通过简化威尔伯·莱特学院、芝加哥公立学校和伊利诺伊州公立四年制学院和大学之间的联系来实现这一目标。在这个项目中制定的战略和产生的知识预计将对公共教育的广泛部分具有重要意义。该项目将集中在威尔伯·赖特学院，这是芝加哥城市学院系统中的一所城市社区学院。威尔伯·莱特学院是伊利诺伊州最大的联邦承认的拉美裔服务社区学院。该项目旨在通过创建夏令桥夏令营来搭建跨越关键过渡的桥梁，以提高数学技能，并为即将入学的学生准备工程或计算机科学课程。它还将创建一门为期一年的工程门户课程，以进一步加强学生的数学技能和自我效能。该项目还旨在加强支持学生职业认同感发展的实践(即将自己视为工程师或计算机科学家的能力)，通过教职员工和近距离同行的指导、辅导、有意建议、工程和计算机科学社交活动以及参加专业会议。该项目将跟踪学生从学期到学期的GPA、保留率、转校率、毕业率以及完成大专和学士学位的时间长度。自我效能感和认同感将由教育研究专业人员衡量。该项目预计将有助于国家对多样化的工程和计算机科学工作人员的需求。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。

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 Wilbur Wright College will advance the aims of the HSI Program by enabling talented, underprepared, low-income students to pursue and complete a bachelor's degree in engineering or computer science. Public schools in urban areas struggle to prepare their large populations of low-income students in math and science. Thus, many high school graduates are not well prepared to pursue further education requiring quantitative or analytical thinking, or to join the US workforce in jobs demanding these skills. This project aims to develop and implement pathways, practices, and interventions to support student success in engineering or computer science at two critical transitions: from high school to community college, and from community college to four-year universities. The project plans to achieve this goal partly through streamlined connections between Wilbur Wright College, the Chicago Public schools, and public four-year colleges and universities in Illinois. The strategies developed and the knowledge produced in this project are expected to be significant to a broad segment of public education.The project will be centered at Wilbur Wright College, an urban community college in the City Colleges of Chicago system. Wilbur Wright College is the largest federally recognized Hispanic-serving community college in Illinois. The project aims to build bridges across critical transitions by creating a Summer Bridge Camp to improve math skills and prepare incoming students for an engineering or computer science curriculum. It will also create a one-year engineering Gateway course to further strengthen students' math skills and self-efficacy. The project also aims to enhance practices that support the development of students' professional identity (i.e. the ability to see themselves as engineers or computer scientists), through faculty and near-peer mentoring, tutoring, intentional advising, engineering and computer science social events, and participation in professional meetings. The project will track students' semester-to-semester GPA, retention, transfer, graduation rates, and length of time to complete the associate's and bachelor's degrees. Self-efficacy and identity will be measured by an educational research professional. This project is expected to contribute to the national need for a diverse engineering and computer science workforce.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.