In order to increase the number of graduates obtaining bachelor degrees in the STEM fields, the College of Science is implementing a number of interventions. In addition, students in the College of Engineering also are deriving substantial benefit from these interventions. Since significant attrition, almost 50%, occurs among both freshmen and transfer students from community colleges, the new activities are focusing on retention strategies. The expectation is that up to 40% of the students now lost from STEM majors will be retained by the end this five year project. Retaining and graduating 40% of the about 50% of students who currently leave STEM majors translates into a future graduation rate of 70% of students among freshman and among junior transfer students who declare STEM majors. Creating learning communities has been shown repeatedly to improve student success, so the project is greatly expanding existing efforts in order to create an integrated learning community of participating faculty, professional advisors, undergraduate tutors and mentors, and the STEM students themselves. The students are incorporated into the learning community through use of collaborative learning approaches such as Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) and Process-Oriented Guided-Inquiry Learning (POGIL), highly successful learning models developed in large part with NSF funding. Three major components are the basis for these efforts: 1. Recruit and train a large cadre of talented upper division undergraduate students to act as peer leaders and course assistants (i.e., academic facilitators). 2. Provide professional development workshops for faculty who teach the "gate-keeper" STEM courses taken by entering students. 3. Enhance and expand the professional academic and career advising services, including tracking academic success of every student during each semester. Intellectual Merit: Undergraduate STEM majors are working with faculty to act as mentors and facilitators of younger students, thus providing leadership training and experience for these majors. Developing and implementing effective pedagogical approaches in selected courses is improving learning and increasing student retention. Because the College of Science sponsors large teacher preparation programs in science and mathematics, these efforts also are retaining an increased number of potential K-12 teachers. Successful outcomes will be disseminated through a combination of published articles and presentations at professional and interdisciplinary meetings; project reports will be widely available through the project website, as well as on the national PLTL and POGIL websites. Broader Impacts: The total number of U.S. citizens or permanent resident aliens graduating each year from the Colleges of Science and of Engineering is expected to increase by 332 by the end of the grant period. Local technology industries experience a significant shortage of STEM professionals, necessitating the recruitment of foreign workers on HB1 visas. Because San Jose State University historically provides more of this workforce than any other university in the region, increasing the number of STEM graduates is of immediate benefit to the local community. In addition, the project is broadening the participation of underrepresented groups as extra focus is being placed on these students. Finally, the project is enhancing the infrastructure for research and education on the campus by improving the retention of students in the College of Science and the College of Engineering.
The project has instituted several interventions to improve the retention and graduation of Science, Mathematics, and Engineering students at San Jose State University. We are requiring mandatory advising and summer orientation for entering students. We have opened a College of Science Advising Center for undergraduate academic and career advising. We are tracking each student in our newly revised, gate-keeper math, computer science, and physics courses and contacting those who are performing poorly during the first half of the semester. We are providing tutoring services for students in the gate-keeper courses. We are using peer mentors to help transition entering students into our university environment. We continue to redesign key gate-keeper courses to help more students succeed in them. We have designed a tracking system that tracks student performance, retention, and eventually graduation, to compare the impacts of our interventions with prior years. We have begun every aspect of the project as we had, proposed. Our new advising activities have been well received by students, as has been our early-semester interventions with students who are struggling. We have trained our undergraduate tutors and peer mentors to effectively interact with and assist students who need help. In turn, these tutors and peer mentors have been helping (i.e., teaching) students with both content and skills to succeed in academic courses (e.g., study strategies, note taking skills, time management, navigating the university, etc.) We have two graduate interns who assist our Advising Center with academic and career advising. We created a retention model for the greater SJSU community, and other colleges have begun implementation. Also, we are reaching out to local Community Colleges that feed into SJSU to improve the smooth transition of transfer students into our STEM Colleges Several years ago, only 50% or fewer of our students earned a grade of C or better in our large introductory courses in science or mathematics. And, our student retention and graduation rates were only 50%. Because of the several important interventions that our project has put into place, now 75%-80% of our students earn a course grade of C or better. Many more students have become successful. Our best estimate is that about 75% of students are being retained, and are expected to graduate (a 50% increase compared to the years prior to our project). Most of our tutors and peer mentors are from underrepresented backgrounds, and the knowledge and skills that they are developing will help propel them into successful careers. We are a major teacher preparation university, and any pre- college teachers of science or mathematics in our college are receiving the benefits of our interventions. All of our interventions were based on research findings of what approaches work to promote student success. Since our grant proposal was so comprehensive, we tried to be as strategic as possible in our initiatives and carefully chose programs that would be sustained after the grant finished. We are pleased to report that our widespread implementation of supplemental instruction, especially in calculus, has been sustained and expanded to other lower division math courses as well as lower division computer science and physics courses. The personnel for the College of Science Advising Center (COSAC) will also be sustained at the end of the grant. Key personnel include three staff academic advisors, a 0.5 administrative assistant and five peer advisors. Since university administrators recognized the importance of COSAC in promoting student success for STEM majors, college advising centers have now opened also, in Engineering, Applied Sciences and Arts, Humanities and the Arts and Social Sciences, with the financial support from the Provost’s Office.
