Network Connector: DEDICATE: Data Science Equity-Driven Inquiry to Create Accessible Project-based Training for Social Impact Education

The Network Connector: DEDICATE: Data Science Equity-Driven Inquiry to Create Accessible Project-Based Training for Social Impact Education aims to solve some of the challenges to broadening participation in STEM at a systems-level. To this effect four problems were identified that are barriers to success. 1. Instructor-designed “projects” not based in Project-Based Learning (PBL) Research; 2.

Silos of Projects across STEM and Non-STEM disciplines; 3. Lack of Faculty-Centric Design; and 4. Lack of Systemic-Change Networks.

DEDICATE aims to address these four problems by 1. Leveraging the educational research behind PBL techniques, specifically to design PBL modules that are culturally relevant and can be used across disciplines to empower natural collaboration around real-world challenges; 2. Bridging both Non-STEM and STEM disciplines into data projects around problems of high social impact, specifically climate change (geosciences), criminal justice, and food and water sciences; 3.

Focus on faculty capacity-building and support as the primary mechanism for systemic change, as increasing faculty interest, ability, and confidence in delivering data-centric content across disciplines translates into exponential growth in the exposure of students to STEM and their preparation for STEM Education, aligning with the INCLUDES Initiative Shared Measures effort; and by 4. Fully supporting faculty networks with not only research-based PBL modules, but PBL creation frameworks and assessment and grading tools aligned to ACM and other national and international standards, supporting non-technical faculty in module delivery, creating curated Social Impact PBL modules - co-designed with impact area instructors from across the region, as well as providing training, community forums, and working groups for network expansion and organization around systemic advocacy topics.

DEDICATE also plans to research key questions related to systemic strategies for data-enabled Project-Based Learning that address the critical broadening participation challenge in STEM of lack of access to data knowledge and tools at not only historically underserved institutions (HBCUs and HSIs) but also within interdisciplinary areas (Social Impact Areas).

The DEDICATE network will establish itself as a connector in order to expand through a targeted capacity-building and mini-grants program with an open call for faculty teams to connect as either users or creators of data-enabled PBLs. DEDICATE will build on the work of the South Big Data Innovation Hub and connect to the INCLUDES National Data Science Alliances (NDSA) and the ASPIRE Alliance, as well as other expansion partner networks, such as the HBCU Data Science Consortium and the former NSF HSI-STEM Hub, to build the infrastructure necessary to foster collaborations between alliance institutions.

Four lead institutions NC Central University-HBCU, University of the Virgin Islands-HBCU, California State University, Fresno-HSI, and the Georgia Institute of Technology will engage 30 faculty teams across the country to train over 3,000 students, across the Southern census region of the U.S. and California which covers over 90 of the 101 HBCUs and 163 of the 451 HSIs. Additionally, DEDICATE will connect to the larger INCLUDES ecosystem through efforts to share data, learning modules and access throughout the INCLUDES network.

By using data as a connector, the PI Team aims to empower natural areas of collaboration and new pipelines for faculty and student engagement in STEM education. The broader faculty network thus created through this project has the potential to empower a sustained advocacy network for systemic institutional change.

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.