The Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions Program (HSI Program) aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education and build capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI program will also generate new knowledge about how to achieve these aims. This project at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) will advance the aims of the HSI Program by developing new curricula and methods of instruction that increase student persistence and success. The project will implement a faculty development framework that helps faculty: 1) connect their course content to students' background knowledge; 2) demonstrate connections between lower level and upper level courses; and 3) help students develop professional identities that can lead them into STEM careers. The project will focus on developing students' ability to understand the complex language of science, including words and visual representations, such as graphs, charts, and diagrams. Expected outcomes are that faculty will develop expertise in innovative, evidence-based teaching approaches that enhance student learning, and that students will develop marketable skills needed for success in STEM careers.
The overall goal of this project is to develop new methods of instruction and associated curricular change with an explicit focus on the intersection of academic literacy and content competencies. This goal will be achieved through the application of evidence-based teaching approaches, coaching of STEM faculty to improve student learning, and by providing student mentoring and professional development experiences. The project includes the following specific tasks: 1) Developing and improving undergraduate STEM students' integrated understanding of academic literacy and core competencies; 2) Creating interdisciplinary professional development lesson study groups of instructors to engage in sustainable instructional and curricular change; 3) Aligning STEM curricula between lower and upper division courses; 4) Developing a near-peer mentoring program for sophomore and junior level STEM students; 5) Providing research opportunities and professional development activities for STEM students; and 6) Evaluating the relevance and effectiveness of the institutional curricular redesign. These proposed activities focus on the critical transition between lower and upper level undergraduate courses, a key transition for student retention and graduation in STEM. In addition, innovative cross-disciplinary partnerships will be established between collaborating STEM and Education faculty. These partnerships will create lesson study groups of instructors that draw explicit attention to the role of academic literacy in the development of strong university-level STEM teaching and learning. The proposed plan builds on the dedication of UTSA to increasing diversity in the STEM workforce. This plan is an integrated approach to increase the number of undergraduate underrepresented minorities who graduate from the UTSA Colleges of Engineering and Sciences. It is expected that the program will benefit STEM undergraduates at UTSA by increasing their retention rates, critical thinking skills, professional knowledge, self-efficacy, graduation rates, and professional and workforce preparedness.
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.
