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1. Improving Undergraduate STEM Writing: A Collaboration Between Instructors and Writing Center Directors to Improve Peer-Writing Tutor Feedback.

   Weissbach, Robert; Pflueger Ruth; Edinbarough Immanuel; Renguette Corinne; Sorge Brandon; Mendis Gamini; Rothrock Matthew; Dasgupta Annwesa; Bodenhamer Johanna. (June 2023, 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   Undergraduate writing skills in STEM fields, especially engineering, need improvement. Yet students in engineering fields often do not value them and underestimate the amount of writing they will do in their careers. University writing centers can be a helpful resource, but the peer writing tutors that often staff them need to be prepared for the differences in writing between humanities and STEM fields. The Writing Assignment Tutor Training in STEM (WATTS) model was designed to improve tutor confidence and student writing. In this innovative training, the writing center supervisor and STEM instructor collaboratively create a one-hour training for tutors about the assignment content, technical terminology, genre conventions, and instructor expectations. A research study on this multidisciplinary collaborative project is being conducted to determine the impact of WATTS on students, tutors, and faculty and to identify its mitigating and moderating effects, assessing the elements of the model that have the most impact. Data from all WATTS stakeholders—students, tutors, faculty and writing center staff—have been collected. Both quantitative and qualitative instruments were used, including pre- and post-surveys, interviews and focus groups. WATTS’ effects on student writing have been assessed by the comparison of pre- and post-tutoring reports using a normed rubric and have demonstrated statistically significantly improvement in student writing. The results are being used to develop a replicable, sustainable model for dissemination to other institutions and application within other STEM fields. Increasing collaboration between engineering instructors and writing centers is a desirable outcome and essential for WATTS dissemination to a broad audience. NSF funding of this project has enabled the investigators to expand WATTS to additional engineering courses, test key factors with more instructors, and refine the process. It is anticipated that the study will contribute valuable knowledge to facilitate the improvement of student writing in STEM fields. As the cost of higher education increases, institutions are pressured to graduate students in four years while engineering curricula are becoming more complex. WATTS presents an economical, effective method to improve student writing in the discipline. Several factors indicate that it has the potential for broad dissemination and impact and will provide a foundation for a sustainable model for future work as instructors become trainers for their colleagues, allowing additional ongoing expansion and implementation. WATTS serves as a model for institutions (large or small) to capitalize on existing infrastructure and resources to achieve large-scale improvements to undergraduate STEM writing while increasing interdisciplinary collaboration and institutional support. 

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2. Enhancing the Success of Minority STEM Students by Providing Financial, Academic, Social, and Cultural Capital

   Enriquez, A. G.; Lipe, C. B.; Price, B. (June 2017, ASEE annual conference & exposition)

   Research has shown that student achievement is influenced by their access to, or possession of, various forms of capital. These forms of capital include financial capital, academic capital (prior academic preparation and access to academic support services), cultural capital (the attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors related to education which students are exposed to by members of their family or community), and social capital (the resources students have access to as a result of being members of groups or networks). For community college students, many with high financial need and the first in their families to go to college (especially those from underrepresented minority groups), developing programs to increase access to these various forms of capital is critical to their success. This paper describes how a small federally designated Hispanic-serving community college has developed a scholarship program for financially needy community college students intending to transfer to a four-year institution to pursue a bachelor’s degree in a STEM field. Developed through a National Science Foundation Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM) grant, the program involves a collaboration among STEM faculty, college staff, administrators, student organizations, and partners in industry, four-year institutions, local high schools, and professional organizations. In addition to providing financial support through the scholarships, student access to academic capital is increased through an intensive math review program, tutoring, study groups, supplemental instruction, and research internship opportunities. Access to cultural and social capital is increased by providing scholars with faculty mentors; engaging students with STEM faculty, university researchers, and industry professionals through field trips, summer internships, professional organizations, and student clubs; supporting student and faculty participation at professional conferences, and providing opportunities for students and their families to interact with faculty and staff. The paper details the development of the program, and its impact over the last five years on enhancing the success of STEM students as determined from data on student participation in various program activities, student attitudinal and self-efficacy surveys, and academic performance including persistence, retention, transfer and graduation. 

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3. The Impact of Participation in STEM Outreach on Persistence of Diverse Students in Physics, Math, and Engineering

   Key, Joey Shapiro; Simonsen, Linda; Margherio, Cara (July 2024, Journal of STEM Education: Innovations and Research)

   The STEM Public Outreach Team (SPOT) at the University of Washington Bothell (UWB) provides training and community building opportunities for diverse STEM students that impact their persistence in STEM majors and careers. The University of Washington Center for Evaluation and Research for STEM Equity (CERSE) evaluated the experiences of SPOT Student Ambassadors to identify and strengthen the program elements that lead to motivation, confidence, and belonging for students from groups underrepresented in STEM fields. Current and former UWB SPOT Student Ambassadors participated in interviews for both formative and summative evaluation over two years identifying motivations, rewards, challenges, and improvements. 

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4. FRAMING A STEM EDUCATION-CAREER BRIDGE PROGRAM WITH A GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP MODEL AND FORENSICS ANALYTICS

   Cheng, Joselina; Feng, Rebekah (November 2018, Journal of applied global research)

   The National Science Foundation funded the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO) for a three-year bridge program to broaden the participation in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) by female students. UCO is a state university in the United States. The project team proposed a global government-university-industry (GUI) model to collaborate with partnering institutions at the international, federal, and state levels. Partnering institutions included IBM, the FBI, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI), the Oklahoma Center for the Advancement of Science and Technology, the Francis Tuttle Innovation Center, and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research. Representatives from these partnering institutions served in the roles of advisory board members and internship sponsors who identified skill requirements and job trends. For phase one (2018), the focus was the research and development (R&D) and the implementation of a STEM program with a focus on Forensics Analytics (FA). The STEM+FA curriculum was designed with real-world applications and emerging technologies (e.g. IBM Watson, simulation, virtual reality). The STEM+FA pilot program consisted of simulated learning environments, STEM modules, cloud-based tutorials, and relational databases. These databases were similar to the Combined DNA Index System and Automated Fingerprint Identification System which have been adopted by the FBI and the OSBI to solve modern-day crimes (e.g. cyber security, homicide). Researchers pilot tested the STEM+FA program by collecting and analyzing quantitative and qualitative data. Findings derived from the pilot study evidenced that the STEM+FA pilot program had positive effects on female student career awareness and perceived competencies; whereas career interest remained unchanged. 

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5. An example of effective mentoring for research centres

   https://doi.org/10.1201/9780429438660-2  

   Bronner, C.E.; Wilson, D.W.; Ziotopoulou, K.; Darby, K.M.; Sturm, A.; Raymond, A.J.; Boulanger, R.W.; DeJong, J.T.; Moug, D.M.; Bronner, J.D. (July 2018, Physical Modelling in Geotechnics)

   Andrew McNamara, Sam Divall (Ed.)

   Engineering centre research faculty and staff value the importance of performing educational outreach and mentoring graduate students. However, these activities are often less structured than research projects, which leads to variable and less effective results. The geotechnical group at the University of California, Davis (UC Davis), which includes research faculty and staff at the Center for Geotechnical Modeling and the Center for Bio-mediated and Bio-inspired Geotechnics, developed a Ladder Mentoring Model (LMM) for mentoring graduate students in academic environments to enrich graduate student development while minimizing additional demands on centre personnel. The LMM is a combination of several existing mentoring models and relies on six core principles where the outcome is students receiving guidance from a variety of mentors with different areas and levels of expertise or experience. This paper provides a brief overview of the UC Davis LMM and describes how it is integrated into three critical areas of graduate student development: technical training, professional skills, and educational outreach. 

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