The benefits of undergraduate student experiences are well known. Students participating in research experience for undergraduates (REU) programs report increased skills and self-confidence, a greater sense of empowerment as learners and more motivation to pursue science or engineering careers and graduate degrees. REU programs generally aim to engage students in exciting and rewarding research and professional development experiences to motivate them to pursue careers or advanced degrees in the sciences, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Unlike most other types of summer internships, REU programs are typically very student-focused. The faculty mentors, projects, activities, seminars, tours, etc. are selected to generate a positive impact on the student participants. After many years of offering a successful REU experience, the AERIM REU program at Oakland University (OU) decided to include a K-12 outreach component to its list of REU activities. This decision was driven by the many documented benefits of service-learning programs, which not only are of value to the persons receiving the service, but also the students providing it. They also help students improve their interpersonal and communication skills and develop a better understanding of the needs of people with diverse or different backgrounds.
After pivoting to a virtual format in the summer of 2021 due the Covid-19 pandemic, the AERIM REU program was once again offered in-person in the summer of 2022, hence allowing for an outreach activity. The initial plan was to partner with a non-profit science center in the city of UU. Unfortunately, the science center was experiencing staffing changes, as well as ongoing challenges due to Covid-19, so the AERIM REU PIs had to come up with an alternative. The school of engineering and computer science at OU has a robust and active K-12 outreach program and has partnered with the RRR society to offer a summer residential STEM program, targeting under-represented minority high-school girls from the city of UU. Working in coordination with the assistant director of outreach, AERIM REU students were tasked with developing outreach activities and presentations for the camp participants. Each REU team was responsible for developing one 1-1.5 hour activity. REU students were given complete flexibility to develop their outreach activities with little faculty influence, but were encouraged to focus on hands-on activities that could relate back to their ongoing REU research projects and that would excite the camp participants about STEM. In this paper, we report on the organization and results of this initiative. Assessment results of the outreach activity will also be shared. We believe that this type of information could prove to be of value to other REU program directors and faculty seeking to organize similar programs.
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Learning From a Pandemic: Redesigning with Universal Design for Learning to Enhance Scientific Skills
Colleges are becoming increasingly diverse, including strengthening representation of students with disabilities in STEM (Science, Teaching, Engineering, and Math) fields; however, representation still lags behind national trends. To adapt to this changing demographic and improve representation, STEM college professors must be prepared to grant equitable access to the STEM curriculum and enhance scientific communication skills. This practice brief outlines how a college science faculty applied the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework to improve scientific communication skills equitably among college students with diverse needs during a 10-week NSF-REU (National Science Foundation – Research Experiences for Undergraduates) at the host institution summer program during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also provides recommendations about how students with disabilities (i.e., chronic illness, chronic pain, depression, anxiety, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder [ADHD]) which may have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Applying the UDL framework increased student confidence in applying the scientific method and led to gains in students' perception of their ability to use their skills to solve scientific problems. STEM faculty can use the lessons from the NSF-REU summer program outlined in this work to develop inclusive and accessible STEM programs for students with diverse needs across the country. Moreover, this work highlights the need for STEM faculty to involve Disability Services coordinators as active members in research programs to ensure equity and inclusion.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1950585
- PAR ID:
- 10418181
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of postsecondary education and disability
- ISSN:
- 2328-3343
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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During the COVID-19 pandemic, many undergraduate internships, including the National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) programs, were canceled or moved online. Although several studies have examined student success during the online transition, less research has examined how REU programs have changed from this experience, the ongoing and novel challenges, and strategies that program coordinators employed to overcome them. To investigate this gap, REU site programs were surveyed in the NSF Geosciences (GEO) Directorate, with findings that many students declined participation after having been accepted into programs, and that there were difficulties accessing institutional support services and meeting changing student needs. Despite these challenges, nearly all respondents reported program satisfaction, with several indicating the importance of GEO REU community support. Overall, REU coordinator resilience appears to be a major factor in program success.
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null (Ed.)K–12 schools across the United States have been challenged to make programmatic shifts to meet the needs of youth and their families during the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to both structure and existing connections to youth and families, many out-of-school learning (OSL) programs, including Pre-College STEM Programs (PCSPs), are nimbler and have the ability to be more responsive. The STEM PUSH Network (a National Science Foundation INCLUDES Alliance; https://stempushnetwork.org)—which brings together PCSPs as part of a national collaborative of programs and citywide STEM Ecosystems focused on program improvement and college admissions—revealed some of the ways programs have adjusted during COVID- 19, as well as the ways systematic cross-program collaboration can enhance this work.more » « less
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Opportunities for undergraduate research in STEM programs at community colleges can be few where lower-division science curriculum emphasizes classroom and laboratory-based learning and research laboratories are limited in number. This is particularly true in the geosciences where specialized programs are extremely rare. Urban serving academic research institutions have a unique role and opportunity to partner with regional community college programs for undergraduate research early-on in student post-secondary educational experiences. Programs built for community college transfer students to urban serving undergraduate programs can serve to integrate students into major programs and help reduce transfer shock. The benefits of exploring research as an undergraduate scholar are numerous and include: building towards mastery of technical skills; developing problem-solving in a real-world environment; reading and digesting scientific literature; analyzing experimental and simulation data; working independently and as part of a team; developing a mentoring relationship with a research advisor; and building a sense of belonging and confidence in a scientific field. However, many undergraduate research internships are targeted towards junior-level STEM majors already engaged in upper-division coursework and considering graduate school which effectively excludes community college students from participating. The Center for Climate and Aerosol Research (CCAR) Research Experience for Undergraduate program at Portland State University serves to help build the future diverse research community. 10-week intern research experiences are paired with an expert faculty mentor are designed for students majoring in the natural/physical sciences but not necessarily with a background in climate or atmospheric science. Additional programmatic activities include: 1-week orientation and training using short courses, faculty research seminars, and hands-on group workshops; academic professional and career development workshops throughout summer; journal club activities; final presentations at end of summer CCAR symposium; opportunities for travel for student presentations at scientific conferences; and social activities. Open to all qualifying undergraduates, since 2014 the program recruits primarily from regional (Northwest) community colleges, rural schools, and Native American serving institutions; recruiting students who would be unlikely to be otherwise exposed to such opportunities at their home institution. Over the past 9 cohorts of REU interns (2014-2019), approximately one third of CCAR REU scholars are community colleges students. Here we present criteria employed for selection of REU scholars and an analysis of selection biases in a comparison of students from community colleges, 4-year colleges, and PhD granting universities. We further investigate differential outcomes in efficacy of the REU program using evaluation data to assess changes over the program including: knowledge, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation, science identity, program satisfaction, and career aspirations. In this presentation, we present these findings along with supportive qualitative analyses and discuss their implications for community college students in undergraduate research programs in geosciences.more » « less
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The Smart City Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) and Research Experience for Teachers (RET) (SCR2) Mega-Site program, which is supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) (#1849454), was formed in 2018 to address the low participation and graduation rates of post-secondary students belonging to underrepresented minority groups in the engineering field. The participating schools in the program are all minority serving and members of a consortium consisting of 14 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and 1 Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), where Morgan State University (MSU) serves as the lead institution. The program targets lower division underperforming REU students who are less likely to have the opportunity to participate in research as undergraduates. Participation in this type of experience has been demonstrated to be transformative and to have the potential to increase retention and graduation rates at these institutions. RET participants are recruited from local community colleges and high schools that serve as feeder schools to the consortium institutions. These teachers are responsible for preparing students who could potentially be interesting in pursuing a college major in engineering by exposing them to hands-on engineering design practices. Over the last two years of the program’s existence, 61 students and 24 teachers have successfully participated. As with most 2020 summer programs, the SCR2 program was challenged by the novel corona virus (COVID-19) pandemic, which hit the United states during the recruitment period of the project. Consequently, the project leadership team decided to offer the summer program remotely (on-line) rather than bring students to the participating three campuses across which the program is distributed. The planning and execution of the program during a global pandemic has brought key insights into techniques, methods, and technologies for effective cross-site communication, faculty advisor/mentor involvement, participant engagement, and leveraging the strong network that connects the participating schools. Essentially, a multi-site remote only combined REU/RET program is efficacious in increasing participant’s confidence, knowledge and desire to pursue further engineering research experiences. This paper presents these insights along with supporting program evaluation findings.more » « less
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