Despite the influx of an increasingly diverse, often under-prepared student body, institutions of higher education have not sufficiently reassessed and revised their curricula and teaching methodologies in Science, Math, Engineering and Technology to accommodate the varying cultural backgrounds and levels of preparedness of these students. All too often students' first encounter with college level work in these challenging areas is through classes taught in a lecture-format in which little or no attention is paid to encouraging active learning, attending to differing learning needs or to exploring the human and social dimensions of science and technology. As a result, students can become indifferent or hostile to these fields, avoiding further SMET work. This problem is further complicated by the fact that students who do persevere beyond an initial course are not afforded a consistent, coherent, interconnected education as they move among the various SMET courses. The University of Hartford's reform proposal aims to attract more students, particularly female and minority students, to SMET fields by improving teaching and learning in introductory courses as well as by fostering increased curricular and pedagogical coordination and consistency within SMET disciplines particularly within the first years. Employing a synergistic combination of innovative teaching practices and technologies, faculty will reform entry level SMET courses. The objective of these reforms is to create environments in which students engage in collaborative learning projects, work in groups with specially trained peers, and employ appropriate educational technologies that increase interactivity and foster intellectual synthesis. Within the two- year period of the grant 10 to 12 introductory SMET courses (offered in four colleges of the University) will be transformed. Furthermore, the project will create a strong cross- collegiate framework within SMET disciplines for facult y collaboration and professional development, The reform builds upon and integrates five highly successful programs already in place at the University of Hartford. The first is the reform of "gateway" mathematics courses in the College of Arts and Sciences to incorporate the use of graphing calculators, applications based exercises, group work, and peer facilitation. The second is a program for women in SMET funded by the US. Department of Education at Hartford College for Women. In supportive classroom cultures, women engage in collaborative learning; outside of the classroom they attend "metacognitive sessions " which nurture scientific thinking and study skills applicable to SMET fields, while combating culturally induced anxieties about working in these fields. The third is a faculty development project for innovative pedagogies in the natural sciences sponsored by the Keck/PKAL which introduced science faculty to collaborative and problem-based learning techniques, effective interactive multimedia tools, and pedagogical methods most responsive to the needs of women students. The fourth innovation is the College of Engineering's reconceptualization of its first-year curriculum to include work in teams on small scale, practice-oriented research projects and experience with current technologies. Finally, the Advanced Education Computing Grant funded by FIPSE has trained a cadre of faculty (70 by the end of AY 1996) in the authoring and use of interactive multimedia in the classroom in order to foster student-centered learning. The University expects to develop a national model of excellence in SMET education at small comprehensive universities; this model will enhance consistency and coherence of students' experience of science, encourage student-centered learning experiences, foster greater student success in introductory SMET courses, and encourage increased persistence among students in pursuing further SMET work. Its uniqueness stems fr om a realistic assessment of the process of change, experience with successful small scale change initiatives, and institution-wide commitment to reexamining the first year experience and reallocating resources to introductory level courses and support services.
