HSI Pilot Project: Learning Assistant Transfer Pathway: Fostering STEM Connections

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Track 1 project aims to use the established and successful Learning Assistant program at Metropolitan State University of Denver (MSU Denver) to promote transfer pathways between a two and four-year institution (Community College of Denver (CCD) and MSU Denver respectively), improve overall STEM classroom instruction, and increase retention and success of STEM students. Resulting research on sense of belonging, transfer rates, participation, and learning outcomes for all participants but particularly those of underrepresented students will help to shape the ways institutions can move forward to support communities of learners between institutions.

The use of Learning Assistants (LAs) as near-peer mentors and role models helps students to feel included in the class, content, discipline, and the institution. With the 2- to 4-year transfer aspiration to attainment gap reported nationally at 77.9% (aspiration) versus 10.2% (attainment) in STEM (Wang, 2020) and that students underrepresented in STEM fields demonstrate much greater success in supportive cohort models (Maton, 2000; Morrell, 2003; NCTM, 2014; Semken, 2008; Slovacek, 2012), this unique, cross-institutional community-building project is designed to extend the feelings of inclusion, connection, and belonging to the transfer experience.

The shared LA experience naturally creates a stronger transfer pathway through collaboration and community between and within the LA cohorts, students in the classrooms, faculty, and STEM departments. The sustained contact with near-peer undergraduates as role models and mentors serves to increase the sense of belonging and inclusion in STEM teaching and learning and create a pathway for success.

The overall goal of the program is to improve participation, retention, and transfer in STEM programs by: 1) Fostering a successful Transfer Pathway from the 2-year institution to the 4-year institution using the Learning Assistant Program and 2) Improving student sense of STEM belonging. The shared LA Transfer Pathway will examine through surveys and interviews the effects of specific cross-institutional shared LAs who will not only provide important content and social support but give transfer interested students near-peer allies and mentors familiar with the transfer process.

As a result, we expect increased, retention, participation, student success, and sense of belonging at both institutions as well as in increased number of successful transfers from the 2- to 4-year institutions. Project results and lessons learned will be shared throughout the institutions and to key stakeholders. The HSI Program aims to enhance undergraduate STEM education, broaden participation in STEM, and build capacity at HSIs.

Achieving these aims, given the diverse nature and context of the HSIs, requires innovative approaches that incentivize institutional and community transformation and promote fundamental research (i) on engaged student learning, (ii) about what it takes to diversify and increase participation in STEM effectively, and (iii) that improves our understanding of how to build institutional capacity at HSIs. Projects supported by the HSI Program will also draw from these approaches to 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.