Educating Undergraduate Students for STEM Career Opportunities in Nebraska: Networks, Experiential-learning, & Computational Thinking

该项目将通过支持有经济需要的高成就低收入学生的保留和毕业，促进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。在五年内，该项目将为124名在东南社区学院或内布拉斯加州西部社区学院攻读副学士学位以及在内布拉斯加大学林肯分校攻读学士学位的STEM学生提供两年和四年的奖学金。 该项目将招募，教育和指导学术人才，低收入学生的群体，目标是支持谁拥有数学和计算机科学的专业知识，谁准备进入STEM劳动力或追求研究生教育在STEM领域的学者毕业。该项目将强调招募妇女、代表性不足的少数民族、第一代学生和农村学生，从而促进STEM劳动力的多样性。该项目的总体目标是提高低收入，高成就的本科生与证明财政需要完成STEM学位。在所有三个校区，学者将采取计算机科学和数学课程的特殊部分在他们的头两年。来自三个合作机构的教师将合作实施积极的学习方法，并使用内布拉斯加大学林肯分校目前正在开发的开放式教育资源。学者将参加一个学分的研讨会，旨在帮助学生发展领导潜力，获得宝贵的学术技能，了解可用的支持服务，并建立一个支持性的同龄人社区。除了支持所有学生的工作人员顾问外，每个S-STEM学者都将有教师和同行导师，他们将有助于建立一个支持网络，以满足S-STEM学者的学术和非学术需求。该项目的混合方法功效研究旨在回答研究问题：项目活动和结构在多大程度上帮助学者坚持他们选择的STEM专业和STEM职业道路？这项研究的结果将促进对影响学术天赋，低收入STEM学生的保留，学业成功和毕业的因素的理解，特别强调影响从社区大学转到四年制大学的学生的因素。该项目由NSF的科学，技术，工程和数学奖学金计划资助，该计划旨在增加低收入学术人才的数量，这些学生表现出经济需求，并获得STEM领域的学位。它还旨在改善未来STEM工作者的教育，并产生关于低收入学生的学术成功，保留，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. Over five years, this project will fund two- and four-year scholarships to 124 STEM students who are pursuing associate degrees at Southeast Community College or Western Nebraska Community College and bachelor degrees at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The project will recruit, educate, and mentor cohorts of academically talented, low-income students, with the goal of supporting the graduation of Scholars who have expertise in mathematics and computer science and who are prepared to enter the STEM workforce or pursue graduate education in a STEM field. The project will emphasize recruiting women, underrepresented minorities, first-generation students, and rural students, thus contributing to the diversity of the STEM workforce. The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. At all three campuses, Scholars will take special sections of computer science and mathematics courses during their first two years. Faculty from the three partner institutions will collaborate to implement active learning approaches and to use open education resources that are currently being developed at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Scholars will take a one-credit seminar designed to help students develop leadership potential, gain valuable academic skills, become informed about available support services, and build a supportive peer community. In addition to staff advisers who will support all students, each S-STEM Scholar will have faculty and peer mentors, who will contribute to building a supportive network that can attend to S-STEM Scholars' academic and non-academic needs. The project's mixed methods efficacy research study aims to answer the research question: To what extent are project activities and structures helping the scholars persist in their selected STEM majors and STEM career pathways? Findings from this research will advance understanding of factors that affect the retention, academic success, and graduation of academically talented, low-income STEM students, with a special emphasis on factors that affect students who transfer from a community college to a four-year institution. 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, retention, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways of low-income students.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.