Improving STEM Degree Completion with Professional Development to Support Inclusive and Equitable Classroom Practices

在改善本科STEM教育的支持下：西班牙裔服务机构计划（HSI计划），该项目旨在通过解决对学生群体完成STEM学位产生负面影响的环境因素来促进机构转型。该项目将提供一系列研讨会，通过考虑对系统性问题和学术成功障碍的研究，促进STEM领域的包容性。该项目将寻求通过为教师和管理人员提供活动，练习和促进研究文献的讨论来解决学位完成差异，以研究与他们自己和学生在该机构的生活经历相关的社会和文化因素。该项目还将利用校园现有的努力，旨在创造更具包容性的学术空间。通过采取合作研究导向的方法与教师和管理人员合作，该项目将寻求提供其他机构可以遵循的过程。为了直接解决文化在课堂上的重要性，该项目将采用混合方法研究设计，并将多阶段教师专业发展系列融入更广泛的校园社区，为教师提供一个课程，将促进包容性和公平的学习空间。三个首要目标指导这个项目。首先是为与持久性和保留率差异相关的地方和国家数据奠定坚实的基础，这些数据将用于告知参与者在课堂上的做法和行为。其次是提高对STEM学生的社会和文化位置的认识。第三是修改课堂实践和政策，以提高学生的参与度和成功率。项目小组将探讨几个研究问题。根据STEM学生的看法，需要考虑哪些社会和文化因素来改善课堂气氛？参与项目活动对教师在课堂上的多样性和包容性的概念有什么影响？教师如何参与该项目导致增加实施基于证据的包容性教学？该项目的关键激励因素是解决系统性的不平等，表现在STEM学位完成差距，并与全国各地的HSI分享方法，数据和调查结果。传播工作将包括一个用于分享相关项目信息的项目网站，多个研究出版物和演示文稿，关于创建包容性学术空间的研究会议，以及与NSF INCLUDES网络现有项目的战略联系。HSI计划旨在加强本科STEM教育，扩大STEM的参与，并建立HSI的能力。实现这些目标，鉴于不同的性质和背景下的HSIs，需要创新的方法，激励机构和社区转型，促进基础研究（一）参与学生学习，（二）关于如何有效地多样化和增加STEM的参与，以及（三）提高我们对如何在HSIs建立机构能力的理解。HSI计划所支持的项目也将从这些方法中汲取经验，以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。

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program (HSI Program), this project aims to facilitate institutional transformation by addressing environmental factors that negatively influence STEM degree completion for groups of students. The project will offer a series of workshops that promote inclusivity in STEM fields by considering research on systemic issues and barriers to academic success. The project will seek to address degree completion disparities by providing faculty and administrators with activities, exercises, and facilitated discussions of research literature to examine social and cultural factors associated with their own and their students' lived experiences at the institution. The project will also leverage existing efforts on campus that aim to create more inclusive academic spaces. By taking a collaborative research-oriented approach to working with faculty and administrators, the project will seek to provide processes that other institutions can follow.To directly address the importance of culture in the classroom, the project will employ a mixed methods research design, and a multi-session faculty professional development series integrated into the broader campus community, that provides faculty with a curriculum that will advance inclusion and equity in their learning spaces. Three overarching goals guide this project. First is to lay a solid foundation of local and national data related to disparities in persistence and retention that will be used to inform participant practices and behaviors in the classroom. Second is to increase awareness of the social and cultural locations of STEM students. Third is to modify classroom practices and policies in order to increase student engagement and success. Several research questions will be explored by the project team. According to STEM students, what social and cultural factors need to be considered to improve the classroom climate? What is the impact of participation in project activities on faculty conceptions of diversity and inclusion in the classroom? How does faculty participation in the project lead to increased implementation of evidence-based inclusive teaching? The key motivating factors for this project are to address systemic inequity that is manifested in STEM degree completion disparities and to share methods, data, and findings with HSIs across the country. Dissemination efforts will include a project website for sharing pertinent project information, multiple research publications and presentations, a research conference on creating inclusive academic spaces, and strategic connections with existing programs that are part of the NSF INCLUDES Network. The HSI Program aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education, broaden participation in STEM, and build capacity at HSIs. Achieving these aims, given the diverse nature and context of the HSIs, requires innovative approaches that incentivize institutional and community transformation and promote fundamental research (i) on engaged student learning, (ii) about what it takes to diversify and increase participation in STEM effectively, and (iii) that improves our understanding of how to build institutional capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also draw from these approaches to 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.