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1. Making Meaning through Mentorship: A Student-Led Layered Peer Mentorship Program

   Howland Cummings, M. H.; Schupbach, W. T.; Altman, T.; Jacobson, M. S.; Goodman, K.; Darbeheshti, M. (January 2023, ASEE)

   This Complete Evidence-Based Paper presents research about a layered peer mentorship program for undergraduate engineering students at a public urban research university and ways that students have made meaning from their mentorship experiences. This mentorship program began in Fall 2019 and has grown to include the following layers: (a) first-year students who receive mentorship, (b) sophomore- and junior-level students who serve as mentors (all of whom received mentorship during their first year), (c) junior- and senior-level students who serve as lead mentors who design the program for that academic year (including content, group meetings, service projects, meeting schedules, etc.), (d) a graduate student who mentors and supervises the lead mentors, and (e) a faculty member who oversees the overall program, provides general guidance, and advises all the students. We will describe ways in which the participating students have made meaning of their experience in the program, highlighting three key areas: (1) the web of relationships formed, which cohere into a community; (2) students’ transitions from receiving mentorship as first-year students to mentoring others in their sophomore and junior years; and (3) the feedback and iteration process by which the program has continuously developed, which forefronts student voice and agency. The paper will provide specific examples in each of the three key areas described, with a special focus on students’ own descriptions of the meaning they have made through their participation in the mentorship program. Recommendations will also be shared for those interested in implementing similar programs on their campuses. 

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2. Board 369: Research Experiences for Teachers (RET): Engineering for People and the Planet as Inspiration to Teach Integrated STEM

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--46952  

   Chen, Katherine; Taylor, Donna; Solovey, Erin (June 2024, ASEE Conferences)

   The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) are the focus for a Research Experience for Teachers (RET) Site in Engineering at X University. The relevant and meaningful contexts of the SDGs allow middle and high school teachers and their students to easily make connections between research in a university lab setting to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) concepts in their classroom. Lesson plans inspired by the UN SDGs research experience were developed as an “integrated STEM” problem solving activity by each of the RET teachers. Ten (10) teachers comprising of both pre-service and in-service middle or high school teachers have participated in each cohort over the two years of the NSF RET grant thus far. Six weeks of authentic summer research takes place in 5 different faculty labs at X University under the mentorship of faculty and their graduate students or postdoc. Examples of the research projects include “Photocatalysis for Clean Energy and Environment,” “Genetically Engineering Plasmid DNA molecules to address Tuberculosis Antibiotic Resistance,” and “New Water-Based Technology for Plastic Recycling.” RET participants also attend a weekly coffee session to help guide the teachers through the research process and a weekly ½-day professional development (PD) session to translate the research experience into a classroom lesson plan that aligns to state standards, as well as evidence-backed curriculum design and teaching strategies. Teacher cohort building and community is fostered through group lunches and additional activities (e.g., coordinated lab visits, behind the scenes tour of a local science museum, and industry panel). For evaluation of the RET program, pre/post-surveys measured the teacher’s self-reported ability, confidence, understanding, and frequency of use of the Engineering Design Process (EDP), Integrated STEM, and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Formative assessment was conducted throughout the summer on various aspects of the RET through surveys and regular check-ins with the teachers. At the end of the summer, focus groups were conducted by an external evaluator for both the teacher participants and the research mentors. Both teachers and mentors declared the program was well planned and executed. The teachers developed close bonds and connections, learned a lot from each other, had meaningful research experiences, and developed a sense of community. The research mentors reported that the teachers provided useful research contributions, were enthusiastic about the research, had genuine lab experiences, developed professional skills, and built good community connections. Areas for improvement included clear expectations for everyone, reducing steep learning curves, and consistency of mentoring across the labs. The RET program continues into the academic year with occasional meetings to report on the implementation of their research-inspired lesson plan in their classroom. The RET participants share that they are bringing in the “real world” relevance to their students with an integrated STEM lens (e.g., climate change and UN SDGs) and that they refer back to their own lab experiences (e.g., importance of measuring chemicals accurately). The research experience has made several positive impacts on the teacher participants that also benefit their students. 

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3. Implementing and Assessing a Joint REU/RET Program in Materials Science

   Salzman, Noah; Nadelson, Louis; Ubic, Rick (January 2016, ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition)

   In this paper we describe a joint Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) and Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program focused on energy and sustainability topics within a Materials Science and Engineering program at a public university. This program brought ten undergraduate science and engineering students and five local middle and high school teachers on campus for an 8-week research experiences working with different lab groups. Given the relatively small number of participants, we chose qualitative interviews as our primary source of data for assessing the effectiveness of this program. The participants identified numerous positive aspects of participating in the summer research program. Students appreciated the sense of community they developed with both the other participants in the research program and the other members of their lab groups. Although most of the participants did not report the summer research experience as having a strong influence on their decisions to pursue graduate school or careers involving research, they did report both being more confident in their ability to be successful as a researcher and appreciating the opportunity to learn more about the practice of engineering research in an academic setting. For the teachers involved in the program we describe how participation influenced their leadership, perceptions of adoption educational innovations, and willingness to provide more opportunities to engage their students in authentic STEM research. The participants also provided several recommendations for improvement to the summer research program. For the students, these included more materials in advance and a more streamlined onboarding process to allow them to get up to speed on their projects more quickly, consistent access to their supervisors, and work that is intellectually challenging. Suggestion from the teacher participants for improvement mostly involved requests for more guidance on how to incorporate what they were learning in their research into lessons for their classrooms. By describing this program and the successes and challenges encountered by the participants and organizers, we intend to help others considering implementing REU/RET programs or other summer research experiences to design and implement successful programs. 

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4. The Impact of an Undergraduate Led Mathematics Summer Camp on High School Students’ Interest in Mathematics and Mathematics Teaching

   https://doi.org/10.1080/19477503.2023.2291944  

   de la Cruz, Jessica; Goldman, Samantha (January 2024, Investigations in Mathematics Learning)

   Considering the prevalence of mathematics teacher shortages in the United States, together with declining enrollments in teacher preparation programs, it is crucial for districts and teacher preparation programs alike to investigate new recruitment initiatives. In this pilot study, a university aimed to increase high school students’ interest in mathematics and mathematics teaching through a 1-week summer mathematics camp led by university undergraduates who were participating in an experiential learning program in mathematics teaching. The undergraduates engaged the high school students in activities chosen to allow exploration and discovery related to advanced mathematics topics. High school students expressed highly positive perceptions of the mathematics camp outcomes. Furthermore, participants experienced increased interest in mathematics at the end of the week and approximately one-third of participants attributed the camp to improving their likelihood of entering a teacher preparation program. Participants highlighted the positive classroom environment and focus on social emotional learning as strong contributors to the success of the camp. Implications for future research and practice are discussed. 

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5. Pre-College Summer Program in Entrepreneurial and Design Thinking Influences STEM Success for African American Students

   https://doi.org/10.15695/jstem/v7i2.03  

   Jackson, Caesar R; Whittington, Dawayne; Bradley, Tanina (February 2024, The Journal of STEM Outreach)

   Shepherd, Virginia L; Chester, Ann; Bass, Kristin M (Ed.)

   Sustained innovation and economic strength of the U.S depends on a greater participation of underrepresented minorities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). University-based outreach programs that serve African American and other minority populations should do more to infuse invention education in activities that engage pre-college students from these groups to motivate them to pursue STEM degrees. The Research, Discovery, and Innovation (RDI) Summer Institute is a design and science entrepreneurship program that is offered at North Carolina Central University to high school seniors who have been accepted for admission to a STEM degree program at the university. This study found the RDI Summer Institute program to be effective based on proximal outcomes of gains in composite entrepreneurial thinking skills (entrepreneurial, managerial, engineering design, and technical skills) as perceived by the participants and measured by pre- and post-surveys. Eighty-seven percent of the pre-college participants were African Americans, showed high levels of creativity and innovativeness, and presented product ideas that were conscientious in meeting their community needs. Program impact was assessed based on near-term and distal academic outcomes in college through a rigorously designed quasi-experiment which compared 31 case-control matched pairs of students who had been RDI participants and non-RDI participants. A conditional logistic regression showed first-year retention in STEM degree programs for students who had been RDI participants was five times that of students who had been non-RDI participants. Additionally, first-year STEM retention in differential comparisons favored female students, students from very low/low SES households, and students from single parent households. Also, students who had been RDI participants performed higher in STEM gatekeeper courses, and a strong positive impact of the RDI Summer Institute program was associated with higher STEM persistence even two and three years after pre-college students participated. 

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