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1. A Measurement of Systemic STEM Educational Wellness at a Minority-Serving Institution Using the Eco-STEM Educational Ecosystem Health Survey

   Bowen, C. L.; Ibrahim, M. W.; Menezes, G. B. (June 2023, 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   This research paper presents preliminary results of the Educational Ecosystem Health Survey (EEHS), a survey instrument designed by the Eco-STEM team at California State University, Los Angeles, a regionally serving, very high Hispanic-enrolling Minority Serving Institution (MSI). The purpose of the instrument is to quantitatively measure the health of the STEM educational ecosystem from the perspectives of the actors within it. The Eco-STEM team is implementing an ongoing NSF-funded research project aiming to change the paradigm of teaching and learning in STEM and its aligned mental models from factory-like to ecosystem- like. We hypothesize that this model of education will better support students and their individual needs. The pilot results of administering the EEHS to students within the College of Engineering, Computer Science, and Technology and the College of Natural and Social Sciences provide a baseline from which the Eco-STEM team will analyze diversion – and, hopefully, improvement – over the coming years of the project. The pilot survey was administered to undergraduate and graduate students at California State University, Los Angeles, of which the majority have ethnically- and socioeconomically- minoritized backgrounds. The EEHS is comprised of validated survey instruments that query students’ perceptions of various aspects of systemic educational health. These instruments measure the constructs of Classroom Comfort, Faculty Understanding, Belongingness, Thriving, Mindfulness, and Motivation. T-tests and ANOVA models are employed to analyze variations in responses among students based on a host of demographic identifiers. Pilot results from the first administration of the survey include, for example, statistically significant lower reported levels of thriving and mindfulness for students who identify as LGBTQIA+ than those who do not, as well as far lower levels of ecosystem health overall for students who do not have access to stable housing. Additional statistically significant results are identified on the bases of students’ gender, race/ethnicity, disability status, veteran status, undergraduate versus graduate student status, college of study, employment situation, and more detailed housing situation. The pilot results of the EEHS provide detailed insight into the experiences and needs of students in STEM programs at MSIs and regionally serving institutions. The results may also be useful within the contexts of a diverse range of institutions as they strive to serve students from historically marginalized backgrounds. 

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2. Developing a Faculty Community of Practice to Support a Healthy Educational Ecosystem

   Warter-Perez, N.; Galvan, D.; Mijares, J.; Bowen, C.; Menezes, G.; Thompson, L. (September 2022, 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Minneapolis, MN.)

   We STEM educators often hear that so many of our students fail because they are not college ready. But interventions at various levels, despite the hard work of implementation, have not resulted in dramatic improvements. What if, instead, the problem is that the institutional system – including instructional approaches and policies – is not student ready? The goal of our NSF supported project, called “Eco-STEM,” is to establish a healthy STEM educational ecosystem that allows all individuals within the ecosystem to thrive. The context for our work on STEM educational ecosystems is a Very High Hispanic Enrolling Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) at California State University, Los Angeles, where the majority of our students are also low-income and first-generation college students. Guided by an ecosystem paradigm, the project aims to: 1) create a supportive and culturally responsive learning/working environment for both students and faculty; 2) make teaching and learning rewarding and fulfilling experiences; and 3) emphasize the assets of our community to enhance motivation, excellence, and success. Currently, many STEM educators have a mental model of the education system as a pipeline or pathway, and this factory-like model requires standard inputs, expecting students to come prepared with certain knowledge and skills [4]. When the educational system is viewed as a factory assembly line (as shown in Figure 1), interventions are focused on fixing the inputs by trying to increase students’ preparedness, which contributes to a prevailing deficit-focused mindset. This not only hinders student growth but also makes educational institutions less inclusive and teaching less rewarding for faculty. Increasingly, equity-minded educators and researchers employing the framework of community cultural wealth suggest that we need an asset-based mindset if we are to help all students achieve success in STEM. Research on ecosystem models offers a new way of thinking. In contrast to pipelines or pathways, which focus on student outcomes, an ecosystem model is centered on the learning environment, communities, and the experiences that diverse students, faculty, and staff have in the system as active agents. The Eco-STEM project proposes to: 1) shift the mental models of STEM faculty from factory- based to ecosystem-based so that they will intentionally establish healthy classroom ecosystems that facilitate learning for all students regardless of their backgrounds; 2) change the mental models and develop the capacity of department chairs and program coordinators so they can lead the cultural changes needed to create a healthy ecosystem at the department level; and 3) revise the teaching evaluation system to promote faculty development and enhance the student experience, which will help to create a healthy ecosystem at the institution. One fundamental aspect of this project is the Eco-STEM Faculty Fellows Community of Practice (CoP), which is designed to help foster these changes. As a work-in-progress paper, this paper presents the design and structure of the Eco-STEM Faculty Fellows CoP and seeks input from the faculty development community on our approach to fostering a healthy educational ecosystem for the majority marginalized student population we serve. 

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3. Nurturing an Ecosystem for Transformation: Progress and Insights from the Transforming STEM Education using an Asset-Based Ecosystem Model Project at Cal State LA (Year 4)

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--55655  

   Menezes, Gustavo; Bowen, Corin; Rabb, Nicholas; Mejia, Kenya; Thompson, Lizabeth; Warter-Perez, Nancy (June 2025, ASEE Conferences)

   This paper presents progress and insights from the NSF-funded “Transforming STEM Education using an Asset-Based Ecosystem Model” (Eco-STEM) project at California State University Los Angeles, a minority-serving institution where over 70% of students are Hispanic/Latiné, Pell-eligible, and first-generation. Historically, the College of Engineering, Computer Science, and Technology (ECST) has implemented various intervention programs - preparatory courses, cohorting, tutoring, workshops, and peer-mentoring - to support students from their transition to college through graduation. While these efforts have led to incremental improvements, they have not delivered the transformative outcomes we envisioned. A key realization from these interventions is the need for a new approach that meets our students “where they are”. This prompted a shift from operating through the lenses of a rigid, "factory model" of education—which assumes uniformity in student input and output—to an adaptable ecosystem framework that leverages its agents' assets and community cultural wealth. The Eco-STEM project focuses on developing structures and tools to allow the current system, constrained by factory-like processes, to evolve into an asset-based ecosystem that better serves the diverse needs of its agents—students, faculty, and staff. Key initiatives include: (1) the Faculty Fellow Community of Practice, a year-long cohort engaging in discussions on topics such as identity, teacher identity, and cultural wealth, culminating in Action Research Teaching (ART) projects; (2) the Lecturer Faculty Workshops, providing condensed versions of the Faculty Fellow Community of Practice experience; (3) the Educational Ecosystem Health Survey, which uses validated constructs to assess the well-being of the system's members; (4) a new Peer Observation Tool and Process focused on formative, growth-oriented feedback for faculty; (5) a new Student Opinion Survey designed around the ecosystem model, examining classroom climate, structure, and vibrancy; and (6) the Mental Model Survey, which assesses faculty perspectives on academia through the lens of ecosystem and factory educational paradigms. This paper briefly discusses the tools and strategies developed, lessons learned through implementation, and team member reflections on how creating educational spaces that value and adapt to the unique strengths of students, faculty, and staff can lead to thriving outcomes for all. 

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4. The Voices of Our Students: Developing a Student Opinion Survey and Process to Support a Healthy STEM Educational Ecosystem

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--57278  

   Rabb, Nicholas; Bowen, Corin; Mejia, Kenya; Heubach, Silvia; Menezes, Gustavo; Ibrahim, Michael; Feng, Yilin (June 2025, ASEE Conferences)

   This Research paper describes the development of the Eco-STEM Student Opinion Survey as a tool designed to aid in the development of a healthy STEM educational ecosystem for students, faculty, and staff at a majority-minority Hispanic-Serving Institution. An important aspect of this endeavor is to obtain meaningful feedback from students about their experiences in STEM classrooms. However, current institutional student opinion surveys lack important context instructors require to make decisions as they intentionally construct inclusive classroom spaces. The Eco-STEM project is developing a student opinion survey and process designed to provide meaningful feedback to instructors. Climate, structure, and vibrancy, three aspects that are critical to evaluating the health of any healthy educational ecosystem, were used to develop the survey. This work is situated in the engineering education community’s effort to create more inclusive classroom environments. The Eco-STEM Student Opinion Survey contains three component parts: a Demographic Survey, a Values Survey, and an Experiences Survey. The Demographic Survey includes items previously shown by the Eco-STEM project to have significant impacts on perceptions of ecosystem health for our students, such as race/ethnicity, gender, living situation, and household income level. The Demographic Survey will be administered to students in their first semester, and participants will be provided with their previous responses each semester and given the opportunity to update them. The Values Survey has been developed based on the Eco-STEM project conceptualization of a healthy educational ecosystem, one that focuses on classroom climate, structure, and vibrancy. The Values Survey measures students’ views on the importance of each aspect. Like the Demographic Survey, it will be administered to students in their first semester and then updated each semester as desired. Instructors will receive reports on their students’ responses to the Demographics and Values Survey at the beginning of each semester, which will provide them with a basis for intentional decision-making and the establishment of an inclusive classroom space. Finally, at the end of each semester, students will be asked to respond to the Experience Survey for each course in which they were enrolled. This survey is also structured around the proposed constructs of climate, structure, and vibrancy. Reports provided to instructors on each of their classes at the end of the semester will provide useful feedback on which to reflect and design intentional changes for future courses. In this paper, we describe the development of the three component parts of the Eco-STEM Student Opinion Survey as well as the proposed process of implementation. We also present the results of confirmatory factor analyses on a pilot study of the Values and Experiences Surveys, which measures the construct reliability for the proposed constructs of climate, structure, and vibrancy. Evidence of validity will enable the institutionalization of a new process that is centered around the voices of our students and supports the evolution of an educational ecosystem in which all can thrive. 

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5. Eco-STEM: Transforming STEM Education using an Assetbased Ecosystem Model

   Menezes, G.; Bowen, C.; Dong, J.; Thompson, L.; Warter-Perez, N.; Heubach, S.; Galvan, D.; Mijares, J.; Schiorring, E.; Allen, E. (January 2022, 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   A 2019 report from the National Academies on Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) concluded that MSIs need to change their culture to successfully serve students with marginalized racial and/or ethnic identities. The report recommends institutional responsiveness to meet students “where they are,” metaphorically, creating supportive campus environments and providing tailored academic and social support structures. In recent years, the faculty, staff, and administrators at California State University, Los Angeles have made significant efforts to enhance student success through multiple initiatives including a summer bridge program, first-year in engineering program, etc. However, it has become clear that more profound changes are needed to create a culture that meets students “where they are.” In 2020, we were awarded NSF support for Eco-STEM, an initiative designed to change a system that demands "college-ready" students into one that is "student-ready." Aimed at shifting the deficit mindset prevailing in engineering education, the Eco-STEM project embraces an asset-based ecosystem model that thinks of education as cultivation, and ideas as seeds we are planting, rather than a system of standards and quality checks. This significant paradigm and culture transformation is accomplished through: 1) The Eco-STEM Faculty Fellows’ Community of Practice (CoP), which employs critically reflective dialogue[ ][ ] to enhance the learning environment using asset-based learner-centered instructional approaches; 2) A Leadership CoP with department chairs and program directors that guides cultural change at the department/program level; 3) A Facilitators’ CoP that prepares facilitators to lead, sustain, update, and expand the Faculty and Leadership CoPs; 4) Reform of the teaching evaluation system to sustain the cultural changes. This paper presents the progress and preliminary findings of the Eco-STEM project. During the first project year, the project team formulated the curriculum for the Faculty CoP with a focus on inclusive pedagogy, community cultural wealth, and community building, developed a classroom peer observation tool to provide formative data for teaching reflection, and designed research inquiry tools. The latter investigates the following research questions: 1) To what extent do the Eco-STEM CoPs effectively shift the mental models of participants from a factory-like model to an ecosystem model of education? 2) To what extent does this shift support an emphasis on the assets of our students, faculty, and staff members and, in turn, allow for enhanced motivation, excellence and success? 3) To what extent do new faculty assessment tools designed to provide feedback that reflects ecosystem-centric principles and values allow for individuals within the system to thrive? In Fall 2021, the first cohort of Eco-STEM Faculty Fellows were recruited, and rich conversations and in-depth reflections in our CoP meetings indicated Fellows’ positive responses to both the CoP curriculum and facilitation practices. This paper offers a work-in-progress introduction to the Eco-STEM project, including the Faculty CoP, the classroom peer observation tool, and the proposed research instruments. We hope this work will cultivate broader conversations within the engineering education research community about cultural change in engineering education and methods towards its implementation. 

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