HSI Institutional Transformation Project: STEM-CLEAR: Creating Contextualized Learning Pathways across Academic and Cultural Boundaries

With support from the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI Program), this Track 3 ITP aims to enhance STEM education by implementing evidence-based practices that foster institutional changes across diverse disciplines traditionally considered as non-STEM. With advances in artificial intelligence and computing technology, and the growing importance of data analytics, the nature of many jobs is transforming.

Estimates suggest that 35% of all STEM jobs now reside outside traditional STEM sectors, spanning fields such as retail, health administration, and agriculture. Therefore, to address the national imperative of building a capable and diverse STEM workforce, it is critical that we broaden the scope of STEM education to these adjacent disciplines. However, this undertaking is non-trivial and poses numerous challenges across academic, curricular, cultural, and institutional dimensions.

This project takes a comprehensive approach to overcoming these challenges. By crafting tailored learning pathways, the project aims to equip students in targeted disciplines with data and computation skills essential for their specific fields, enabling them to pursue STEM concentrations and rewarding careers in an ever-changing job market. The far-reaching impact of this project is underscored by its potential to positively influence over 5,000 students currently enrolled in the targeted disciplines, with 43.4% identifying as Hispanic and an additional 12.3% representing other Historically Underrepresented Minority (HURM) groups.

It is expected that the successful implementation of the STEM concentrations coupled with recruiting efforts will attract more students to these disciplines, further amplifying the impact. Sustainability measures and collaboration with various organizations will ensure that the proposed transformations become part of the educational ecosystem at Texas State University.

Rapid dissemination of research results, open sharing of instructional material, and community building activities will serve as a catalyst for implementation of similar transformation projects at other HSIs. This ripple effect promises to elevate STEM education nationwide.

This project describes a flexible, scalable and sustainable approach that combines multiple evidence- based strategies for comprehensive and systematic integration of computing and data competencies in 15 majors across three STEM-adjacent disciplines. The contextualized learning pathways that will be created in this project are underpinned by the theoretical framework of expectancy-value theory (EVT).

The introduction to programming course for non-majors is re-envisioned as a multi-contextualized offering that incorporates flipped pedagogy and active learning components. Discipline-specific computing and data competencies are infused into the curriculum using an innovative module-driven approach. The project complements curricular interventions with contextualized and engaging pedagogical practices and STEM identity building initiatives.

The research endeavors in the project seeks to evaluate how experiences with modular bridging curriculum in data and computation, pedagogies of engagement, and STEM identity cohorts can impact Hispanic student retention in STEM-adjacent disciplines, and their sense of belonging and identity in STEM. The research will create new knowledge about institutional STEM capacity building at HSIs, engaged student learning, and efficacy of contextualized learning pathways in recruiting underrepresented groups in STEM and improving their persistence, retention and graduation rates.

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.