Leveraging Technology: Providing a Comprehensive, Active Learning, Online Support Network for STEM Students Attending a Small, Rural, and Remote Community College

该项目将通过支持高成就、低收入、有经济需求的学生在羽毛河学院(FRC)留校和毕业来促进全国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。羽毛河学院是加州社区学院系统中规模最小、最偏远的社区学院之一。在六年的时间里，这个项目将资助多达43名社区大学的学生，他们正在攻读生物、化学、环境科学或物理科学的副学士学位。全日制STEM学生将获得最多6个学期的奖学金，非全日制学生(注册至少6个学期单元)将根据经济需要获得最多8个学期的奖学金。FRC是加州东北部偏远农村地区的一所小型社区学院。该项目旨在提高农村STEM学生与城市同龄人的平等，因为他们进入并毕业于FRC的副理科项目，以便垂直转学STEM，或以STEM的身份加入政府组织或行业。重要的是，农村社区学院是美国社区学院中增长最快的部分，因此是影响STEM劳动力发展的最大未来机会之一。该项目由引导路径模式构建，旨在利用技术建立一个无需旅行就能到达县外的STEM身份，并在学生进入农村STEM管道时更全面地支持他们。作为一所小型、农村和地理位置偏远的社区学院，该项目具有巨大的潜力，可以促进人们对如何有效和高效地支持农村STEM学生通过农村STEM管道的理解。该项目的总体目标是提高低收入、高成就、有经济需求的本科生的STEM学位完成率。该项目的范围旨在通过将奖学金与以下三个目标和干预措施联系起来，提高学生在STEM领域的坚持性：(1)通过一个机构STEM特别工作组招募、保留和支持FRC STEM学生。(2)通过在线STEM成功和丰富课程，促进STEM的认同感和持续参与STEM，该课程将以有效和高效的方式将STEM科学家和他们的科学带到FRC。这两个目标都将得到STEM在线积极学习办公时间的支持，这将(3)允许学生在灵活的时间设置下增加学生的参与度和学习。该项目的一个重要目标是，在嵌入式教育研究人员的支持下，增加对农村STEM学生面临的障碍以及如何减轻这些障碍的了解，以增加农村STEM渠道的留存率，从而对STEM劳动力发展产生积极影响。此外，一个强有力的、迭代的项目评估方法将确保项目目标得到满足，并根据需要进行修改，以解决影响农村STEM学生成功和留住的障碍。这一项目的实施和成果应引起对农村社区和STEM劳动力发展感兴趣的各种中学后教育利益攸关方的兴趣。传播将面向广泛的受众，包括但不限于教育研究人员、政策制定者和转移机构，以最大限度地提高该项目的知名度。该项目由NSF的科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金项目资助，该项目旨在增加在STEM领域获得学位的低收入学术天才学生的数量。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业成功、留住、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优势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 at Feather River College (FRC), which is one of the smallest, most rural and remote community colleges within the California Community College System. Over its six year duration, this project will fund scholarships up to 43 community college students who are pursuing associate’s degrees in Biology, Chemistry, Environmental Science, or Physical Sciences. Full-time STEM students will receive up to 6 semesters of scholarships and part-time students (enrolled for at least 6 semester units) will receive up to 8 semesters of scholarships based on financial need. FRC is a small community college in rural and remote north-eastern California. The project aims to increase the parity of rural STEM students with their urban peers, as they enter and graduate from FRC’s Associate of Science programs in order to transfer vertically in STEM or to join governmental organizations or industry in a STEM capacity. Importantly, rural community colleges are the fastest growing sector of U.S. community colleges and thus represent one of the greatest future opportunities to impact STEM workforce development. This project, structured by the Guided Pathways Model, aims to leverage technology in order to build a STEM identity that reaches outside the county without the need to travel, and to more fully support students as they enter the rural STEM pipeline. As a small, rural and geographically remote community college, this project has significant potential to become a model to advance understanding of how to effectively and efficiently support rural STEM students as they navigate the rural STEM pipeline.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. The scope of this project aims to increase student persistence in STEM fields by linking scholarships with the following three objectives and interventions: (1) Recruit, retain and support FRC STEM Students with an institutional STEM Task Force. (2) Boost STEM identity and ongoing participation in STEM with an online STEM success and enrichment course that will bring STEM scientists and their science to FRC in an effective and efficient way. Both these objectives will be supported by STEM online active learning office Hours that will (3) allow students to increase student engagement and learning in a time-flexible setting. An important goal of this project, supported by an embedded educational researcher, is to increase understanding about the barriers rural STEM students face and how to mitigate such barriers to increase retention in the rural STEM pipeline and thus positively impact STEM workforce development. In addition, a robust, iterative project evaluation approach will ensure that project objectives are met and modified as needed to address the barrier that affect the success and retention of rural STEM students. The implementation and outcomes of this project should be of interest to a variety of post-secondary education stakeholders interested in rural communities and STEM workforce development. Dissemination will target a wide audience including, but not limited to, education researchers, policymakers, and transfer institutions, in order to maximize the visibility of this project. 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.