Improving Career Readiness for Engineering Students Through a Mentored Living Learning Community

该项目将通过支持西伊利诺伊大学（Western Illinois University）这一位于伊利诺伊州中西部的国家支持的农村服务机构（RSI）的优秀低收入学生的保留和毕业，为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做出贡献。该项目为期五年，将为16名攻读工程或工程技术学士学位的全日制学生提供奖学金。第一年的学生将获得四年的奖学金。该项目通过一个有指导的生活学习社区和早期接触工程在工作场所的作用，以职业准备为中心。学生们将获得所需的心态和自我效能感，以便在四年的工程项目中脱颖而出，并为毕业后的职业生涯做好准备。生活学习社区将为学者提供社会和社区支持，以提高学生的适应能力。同伴导师和学习助理将帮助学者取得学习成果，并为适应大学生活提供指导。从农村高中招收学生的夏令营将为学生提供学习工程基础知识和使用工程技术的机会。该项目将培养训练有素的工程专业人员，包括来自农村背景的学生，从而改善他们的经济前景，满足地方和国家的劳动力需求。低收入农村学生对高等教育相关知识和实践的贡献将包括：(1)生活学习社区的有效性；(2)了解队列模型如何在课堂内外支持学生；(3)循证教学策略与工科早期接触的有效性。该项目的总体目标是提高有经济需求的低收入、高成就本科生的STEM学位完成率。该项目旨在通过研究验证的学生支持活动，招收农村学生，留住学者，提高四年毕业率。项目团队将评估生活学习社区、早期基于项目的工程课程和实习在提高学生对职业道路的理解以及追求工程教育和就业的动机方面的有效性。评估研究将解决三个问题：(1)生活学习社区在多大程度上有助于资源不足的工程学生的适应能力和成功？(2)课堂活动和非课堂活动的队列模型是否减轻了资源不足学生的压力和文化冲击？(3)在工程课程早期加入以学生为中心的项目和体验式学习是否能提高学生取得学位的进步，并使他们继续专注于学位？根据学生调查和有关学生保留和进步的机构数据，将采用混合方法来回答这些问题。该项目的研究结果将通过区域和国家会议和出版物与工程教育界分享，以便其他机构可以采用类似的做法。该项目由美国国家科学基金会的科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金项目资助，旨在增加有经济需求的低收入学术天才学生在STEM领域获得学位的人数。它还旨在改善未来STEM工作者的教育，并为低收入学生提供有关学业成功、留校、转学、毕业和学术/职业道路的知识。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。

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 Western Illinois University, a state-supported Rural Serving Institution (RSI) in west central Illinois. Over its five-year duration, this project will fund scholarships to 16 unique full-time students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in engineering or engineering technology. First year students will receive four-year scholarships. This project is centered on career readiness through a mentored living learning community and early exposure to the role of engineering in the workplace. Scholars will gain the needed mindset and self-efficacy to excel in and graduate career-ready from a four-year engineering program. Living learning communities will provide scholars with social and community supports to improve student resilience. Peer mentors and learning assistants will help scholars in achieving learning outcomes and provide guidance on acclimating to college life. A summer camp to recruit students from rural high schools will provide students with an opportunity to learn the fundamentals of engineering and work with engineering technologies. The project will develop highly trained engineering professionals including students from rural backgrounds, thus improving their economic prospects and meeting local and national workforce demands. Contributions to the knowledge and practice related to higher education of low- income, rural students will include: (1) the effectiveness of living learning communities; (2) an understanding how a cohort model supports students both inside and outside of the classroom; and (3) the effectiveness of evidence-based teaching strategies and early exposure to engineering.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. This project aims to recruit rural students, retain scholars, and improve four-year graduation rates through research-validated student support activities. The project team will evaluate the degree to which living learning communities, early project-based engineering curricula, and internships are effective in increasing student understanding of career paths and motivation to pursue engineering education and employment. The evaluation study will address three questions: (1) To what extent do living-learning communities contribute to the resilience and success of under-resourced engineering students? (2) Does the cohort model for classroom and non-classroom-based activities decrease the stress and culture shock of under-resourced students? (3) Does including student-centered projects and experiential learning early in engineering increase students’ progress toward a degree and the likelihood that they remain focused on a degree? A mixed methods approach will be used to answer these questions based on student surveys and institutional data on student retention and progress. The project findings will be shared with the engineering education community through regional and national conferences and publications so that other institutions can adopt similar practices. 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.