Li Feng, Ph.D. - US grants

This NSF Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM) project will increase the number of students, who major in STEM disciplines at Albany State University and go on to successfully pursue STEM post-graduate education or research careers. During the project, 18 scholars will (a) develop and follow a four-year academic and professional plan that will include freshman learning community courses, workshops, service learning, and field trips or visitations under the guidance of a Student Success Coach, (b) participate in at least one undergraduate research experience, and (c) attend and present an undergraduate research project at an on-campus or regional conference. After graduation these talented scholars are expected to join the STEM workforce or go on to graduate school in STEM, enabling the US to compete and innovate in a global economy.

The theory of action for this project is that psychosocial factors such as STEM identity and self-efficacy are particularly critical to retaining STEM students. Thus, the project elements are designed to help students to develop these factors through a strong cohort anchored around a freshman learning community, targeted and intrusive advising, mentoring by faculty and peers, and participation in undergraduate research and internships. Evaluation will address the project's success in achieving its retention, course pass rate, and graduation objectives. Data analysis of student academic performance and participation in program activities will be used to study the effects of interventions like the learning community and intrusive advising on self-efficacy and science identity for students at a Historically Black University. The research results will be disseminated at the University System of GA Teaching and Learning Conference and the Understanding Interventions that Broaden Participation in STEM Careers conference. Manuscripts will be submitted to the Journal of Higher Education and the Journal of College Science Teaching.

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) Program, this Track 1 project aims to advance STEM education research. Specifically, it will analyze the efforts of faculty and student teams to improve introductory STEM courses at a large HSI in central Texas. By providing faculty with support from education specialists, peers, and administrators, the project will facilitate instructional innovations to enhance student learning in STEM gateway courses. The project's key goal is to improve undergraduate STEM courses in ways that that build on the students' strengths and that increase the collaboration between faculty and students in the learning process. The project emphasizes faculty-student partnerships to redesign courses, which has the potential to broaden participation of underrepresented minorities in STEM. In addition, the project's focus on sustained improvements will benefit future students in the gateway courses as well as result in improvements to STEM courses beyond those targeted by this proposal. The work will involve all seven departments in the College of Science and Engineering at Texas State University, directly impacting hundreds of faculty and thousands of STEM students. Lessons learned will inform other higher education institutions that plan to undertake similar initiatives. The project has the potential to increase the number of STEM degrees awarded to underrepresented minorities, thus supporting increased diversity of the national STEM workforce.

The project team will implement and study a comprehensive instructional improvement initiative in the College of Science and Engineering at Texas State University. The initiative consists of four programmatic components that engage faculty and students at increasingly high levels: (1) professional development workshops on evidence-based and culturally relevant instruction; (2) sustained support for faculty to conduct departmental self-assessments to understand student strengths and needs; (3) financial, pedagogical, and community support for faculty-student teams to redesign lower division STEM gateway courses; and (4) development of faculty team leaders who participate in project-level decision making and plan for next steps beyond the duration of the grant. The project will develop a learning assistant model that will engage undergraduate students as instructional partners to leverage the strengths of diverse students. Participating STEM departments will receive multifaceted intellectual, material, and logistical supports to empower faculty-student teams in developing sustainable communities of practice focused on culturally relevant instruction. The first research strand focuses on communities of practice among faculty and learning assistants, by measuring shifts in faculty knowledge, perceptions of students, and instructional practices. The second strand focuses on STEM student trajectories at Texas State, by measuring the effectiveness of course redesigns. The third strand focuses on student graduation rates and STEM workforce outcomes for Texas State and other HSIs, by measuring the impact of learning assistant programs on long-term student outcomes. This research will reveal how theories and models that operate at different levels and multiple contexts can be coordinated to produce sustained, culturally relevant instructional change and improve workforce outcomes and diversity. The knowledge generated by this proposal has the potential to improve STEM student outcomes at diverse higher education institutions across the nation. 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.