Langston's Integrated Network College (LINC) is a five year, HBCU-UP implementation project aimed at creating a 21st century Digital Village. The overall goals of the project are to 1) increase the number of underserved students who enter college, receive undergraduate and advanced degrees in STEM disciplines, and choose STEM careers and 2) expand the diversity of participants in the Langston University STEM program.
The LINC project aims to realize the goals through the implementation of the following activities: 1. Institution of a STEM Digital Village that will support recruitment and retention through the dissemination of information, tracking of Langston's STEM students, and supporting collaboration through dialog; 2. Use of Competency Performance Recordings for Learning (CPR-L) which involves learning by teaching methods where students create recording of themselves doing problems utilizing tablet PCs, forcing students toward solitude and focus, and producing a Competence Performance recording of the students grasp of the subject matter; 3. Implementation of a summer bridge program, aimed at incoming freshmen, with an emphasis on Chemistry, Biology and Calculus; 4. Implementation of developmental internships and master tutors, lab assistants and research internships aimed at undergraduate STEM majors; 5. Implementation of online tutorial program.
A cornerstone of the project, the STEM Digital Village, is an online community designed to support retention by creating a vehicle that encourages on-demand dialog between cohorts, or between cohorts and STEM graduates, among other things. The Village will assist in tracking students post graduation through the use of their expertise as mentors for current Langston students. The Digital Village will also be a conduit for the dissemination of information and findings related to the program.
. This grant was Langston's 2nd consecutively awarded multi-year HBCU-UP grant, aimed at expanding existing grant-related programs to create a 21st century online Digtal Village (STEM Digital Village) as a knowledge base and communications portal. It also included a new course colloquium component, Competency Performance Recording for Learning (CPR-L), that is aligned with the most effective learning protocols, and aimed at helping students understand and apply course concepts to solve problems more effectively. A STEM Summer Bridge was added to augment an existing pre-algebra Summer Bridge program; it featured a curriculum of rigorous pre-college chemistry and algebra classes, using CPR-L. A rigorous mentoring program and extensive enrichment activities, including research projects, were also included. STEM Digital Village (SDV) is now embedded and has over 30,000 members. Visitors exeed 111,000. It achieved its objectives of (1) showcasing the accomplishments of STEM scholars, making them role models in their home communities and also serving as a recruiting tool; (2) encouraging on-demand dialogue between cohorts, and between cohorts and STEM graduates; and (3) serving as a repository of relevant administrative tools and study aids that support students in STEM disciplines. The SDV tool is being expanded under a subsequent program to support on-demand, private conversations between STEM staff and new STEM teachers. CPR-L is a teaching and learning instructional strategy aimed at "resuscitating" students' learning of the analytical process of problem solving, thus enhancing their problem solving skills as well as their understanding of core course concepts. CPR-L utilizes a system of "learning by teaching" that helps students identify and apply core course concepts to problem solving in an iterative way. It uses evidence-based protocols (Blooms Taxnomy [Cognitive and Affective domains]; Learning Pyramid; Donovan and Bransford's "right way of learning"); requires focus on core course concepts, or foundational learning; and uses Rubrics to support understanding of course content application and guide the problem solving process. Audio/video recording of homework makes it difficult to do via a proxy; it also pinpoints areas of knowledge deficiency, which enables targeted interventions that exceed traditional homework protocol. The process of creating the homework audio/video file replicates the process a traditional teacher would use in preparing a lecture, thus utilizing a top learning protocol - learning by teaching. The CPR-L instructional strategy was utilized during the STEM Summer Bridge program. Results of pre/post couse improvement ranged from 85% to 212% during the 2009-2012 period. During the same period 89% of Summer Bridge attendees enrolled during the Fall semester, and as of Fall, 2013, 81% of those who enrolled were retained beyond their freshman year. During LINC, STEM majors increased over pre-LINC years as follows: 1) Biology majors - 49% (avg. of 85/year to avg. of 127/year); 2)Chemistry majors - 150%, (avg. of 10/year to avg. of 25/year); and 3) STEM students who entered MS/PhD programs (graduate school ongoing rate) increased by 233% (18 vs. 60). Of the 63 LINC scholars, most of whom participated throughout a 4-year period from 2003 through Fall 2008, 58, or 91% graduated. This graduation rate exceeds the national average of 56% for all US public 4-year colleges, the 45.4% rate for all Oklahoma state 4-year public colleges, and the rate of 63.3% for the top comprehensive university in Oklahoma. (Chronicle of Higher Education. 2010). Of the 63 LINC cohorts who participated for up to 4 years, 36, or 57% matriculated to advanced or professional degree programs with a STEM foundation. Research internships, an enrichment experience that aids retention and boosts Scholars' perceived capabilities, increased from an average of 5/year pre-LINC to an average of 25/year, a 400% increase. National winners in research presentation competition increased from an average of 2/year pre-LINC to an average of 7.4/year during LINC, a 270% increase. LINC scholars earned over 60 national awards in oral and poster presentation competition during the last 5 years. The intellectual merit of this grant is that it created a tool that innovates the availability of relevant information and fosters communication without geographic boundaries among STEM scholars. It also enabled a case study for a new teaching and learning strategy that shows promise for increasing learning retention and improving problem solving capabilities. Broader impacts include an increase in LU's contribution of highly qualified STEM professionals to the marketplace. Tools created have proven sustainability beyond the life of the grant. Program information was disseminated in the October 2013 issue of Innovation Magazine, North America ediiton, and online at www.lincproject.com. An article, Integrating Legacy Learning Techniques with 21st Century Technologies to Transform Teaching and Learning, has been submitted for publication at various scholarly journals.
