More Like this

1. BOARD # 266: Leveraging Institutional and Community Capacities in Implementing Community-Engaged STEM PBL

   https://doi.org/10.18260/1-2--55628  

   Wood, Danielle; Aqlan, Faisal; Brockman, Jay; Marie, Hazel (June 2025, ASEE Conferences)

   With higher and faster growing wages, STEM-related employment is key to rebuilding thriving communities. In the deindustrialized Midwest, the urban demographics often show higher percentages of those underrepresented in STEM, such as low socio-economic status (LSES) and underrepresented minorities (URM). These cities often have poverty rates double the national average, lower educational attainment, and the ‘brain drain’ problem. This creates barriers to developing and retaining a STEM workforce. Funded through an NSF IUSE replication grant, the Community-Engaged Educational Ecosystem model (C-EEEM) targets deficits with which many deindustrialized cities struggle – engagement, knowledge, skill, capacity, and economic - while using an asset-based lens. Following the third replication year for the Community-Engaged Educational Ecosystem model (C-EEEM) in two other Midwestern regions, researchers have found that the C-EEEM demonstrated similar student and community outcomes in new contexts (self-efficacy, STEM-identity, place attachment). 1-5 Broadly, C-EEEM engages students in problem-based learning (PBL),6 with the community-issue becoming part of the curriculum and the community as the classroom; it delivers high-impact educational practices, 7-12 particularly for LSES and URM, while showing broader impacts in neighborhoods, industry, and attraction to the region.13 Despite fidelity to the implementation of the core elements of the C-EEEM, contextual differences at the institutional and community level meant differences in the learning environment. This paper provides a description of the distinctions of the C-EEEM delivery at the institutional level and the community level based on the implementation context, identifying asset-based adaptations. Using survey and reflection data, we explored contextual differences against student experiences and outcomes. Implications for adapting and sustaining the C-EEEM to different institutional and community contexts are then discussed. 

   more » « less
2. NSF IUSE: Leveraging Institutional and Community Capacities in Implementing Community-Engaged STEM PBL

   Wood, D; Aqlan, F; Brockman, J; Marie, H (June 2025, ASEE Annual Conference)

   With higher and faster growing wages [1], STEM-related employment has been key to building thriving communities. In the deindustrialized Midwest, however, cities often have poverty rates double the national average, lower educational attainment, and the ‘brain drain’ problem [2]. These issues create barriers to developing and retaining a regional STEM workforce and competing in the knowledge economy. Thus, STEM engagement is not just a national imperative, but critical to revitalizing these Midwestern cities. The University of Notre Dame developed and piloted a program to address the challenges of STEM engagement/retention in the disciplines and place retention. The program leveraged high impact practices such as immersive place-based education (internships), academic community engagement, and STEM-based experiential problem-based learning, while interns engaged in asset-based community development in the South Bend-Elkhart, Indiana region [3-14]. The pilot program was distilled into a model through evidence-based refinement – the Community- Engaged Educational Ecosystem Model (C-EEEM, pronounced ‘seam’), and contributes to our understanding of building learning environments that meet those challenges [4-6, 15-18]. 

   more » « less
3. Board 368: Replicating the Community-Engaged Educational Ecosystem–Differences in Outcomes Across Students

   Wood, Danielle; Marie, Hazel; Aqlan, Faisal; Brockman, Jay B; Meyers, Kerry (June 2024, 2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   In the second year of a replication in two new cities, this paper examines two years of data on the Community-Engaged Educational Ecosystem model (C-EEEM) in three regions in different Midwestern states. Cities in the deindustrialized Midwest often have higher percentages of those underrepresented in STEM, including low socio-economic status (LSES) and underrepresented minorities (URM); this makes it difficult for them to develop and retain STEM skills in the workforce, critical to rebuilding their communities in the Digital Age. 

   more » « less
4. Replicating a Community-Engaged Educational Ecosystem: First-Year Findings

   Wood, D.; Marie, H.; Aqlan, F.; Brockman, J. B.; Lapsley, D.; Meyers, K.; LaPorte, E. C.; Bello, K. O. (June 2023, 2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   In our highly mobile and global economy, STEM-related employment is key to stabilizing and rebuilding our middle class. Attrition in STEM fields, however, is disproportionately high at all educational levels for women, African Americans, Latinos, and people from low-income families. Compounding these challenges, many places in the United States struggle more than others to attract, develop, and retain STEM skills in their workforce. These cities often have poverty rates double the national average, lower educational attainment, and larger percentages of those underrepresented in STEM. So, while attraction, motivation, and retention in STEM disciplines are a national imperative, their importance within these regions is particularly acute. This poster and paper present the findings from the replication of a community-engaged educational ecosystem – as a STEM learning ‘commons’ – for delivering integrated high-impact pedagogical practices as a paid internship. The initial pilot that informs this replication effort targeted challenges with which many deindustrialized cities struggle – STEM knowledge and skills, talent retention, workforce readiness, and community engagement and vitality. The multi-year study uses a convergent mixed-methods design and collects qualitative and quantitative data throughout the summer immersion. Using data from the pilot site and the first year of the two replication sites, this poster and paper will focus on quantitative findings on a few key areas – including self-efficacy in STEM and place attachment as intermediate metrics toward the goal of rebuilding Midwestern cities. 

   more » « less
5. Effects of High Impact Educational Practices on Engineering and Computer Science Student Participation, Persistence, and Success at Land Grant Universities – Year 2

   Asghar, M.; Minichiello, A.; Banerjee, A.; Ewumi, E.; Claiborn, C.; Adesope, O. (August 2022, 2022 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition)

   The science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workforce contributes to the U.S. economy by supporting 67% of jobs and 69% of the gross domestic product [1]. Currently, there is an increased demand for engineering and computer science (E/CS) professionals, particularly those from underrepresented (e.g., gender, racial, ethnic) and underserved (socio-economic, geographically isolated) groups who bring diversity of thought and experience to the national E/CS workforce [2]. Correspondingly, educational institutions are called upon to develop capabilities to attract, engage, and retain students from these diverse backgrounds in E/CS programs of study. To encourage and enable diverse students to opt into and persist within E/CS programs of study, there is a critical need to engage students in supportive and enriching opportunities from which to learn and grow. The importance of student engagement for promoting student growth and development has been researched to such an extent that its utility is widely agreed upon [5]. Importantly, it has been shown that both academic and extracurricular aspects of a student’s learning processes are characterized by engagement [6]. High Impact Educational Practices (HIP) provide useful opportunities for deep student engagement and, thus, positively influence student retention and persistence [4]. Kuh [3] identified eleven curricular and extracurricular HIP (i.e., collaborative assignments and projects, common intellectual experiences, eportfolios, first year seminars and experiences, global learning and study abroad, internships, learning communities, senior culminating experiences, service and community-based learning, undergraduate research, and writing intensive courses). In computer science and engineering education fields, however, the extent to which HIP affects persistence and retention has not been fully investigated. This project aims to examine E/CS undergraduate student engagement in HIP and to understand the factors that contribute to positive engagement experiences. 

   more » « less