With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Track 1 project aims to design, deliver, and test new practices for teaching in STEM at three Hispanic-Serving Institutions which are part of the California State University (CSU) system in the San Joaquin Valley: CSU Stanislaus, CSU Fresno, and CSU Bakersfield. The project will develop and offer innovative summer retreats, called Ideas Labs, for STEM faculty to engage in a novel collaborative process to adapt and develop High Impact Practices (HIPs) using explicit Creative Problem Solving (CPS) methodology.The project will enhance each institution's Faculty Learning Program (FLP) to provide faculty development on HIPs during the academic year. The aim of the project is for STEM faculty to use HIPs in their teaching of mathematics and chemistry courses to improve students' academic performance and retention rates. Air pollution will serve as an overarching theme for the content platform which will be used to enhance the pedagogy in both mathematics and chemistry courses. This project has potential to significantly impact the retention and graduation rates students in the collaborating HSIs, and increase the numbers of underrepresented students in STEM.
The project will be led by three HSIs with a focus on faculty development, including part-time faculty and adjunct faculty, to improve their teaching practice in ways that will improve student achievement, retention, and motivation. Each of the three collaborating institutions will focus on STEM disciplines that present the greatest challenges for their students. CSU Bakersfield will focus on Chemistry, CSU Stanislaus will focus on mathematics, and CSU Fresno will focus on mathematics and chemistry. A team of social science and STEM researchers will lead the project to assess the how the Ideas Labs retreat and FLP better equip STEM faculty to employ HIPs in their pedagogy to enhance student learning. In particular, the project will assess the impact on how the Ideas Labs and FLP improve the persistence and success of the Hispanic, first generation, and/or low-income students in lower-division STEM courses. Project findings seek to represent impact on a large, diverse group of students at the three collaborating HSIs to generate new knowledge on how both new and current HIPs on lead to a more equitable STEM learning experience. The new HIPs designed through the Ideas Lab will be disseminated and shared broadly through various modalities, including presentations at conferences and CSU system meetings and also a project website. The HSI Program aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also 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.
