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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. 

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. 

This research, full paper examines the impact of introducing asset-based perspectives on faculty mental models of teaching and learning through participation in a Community of Practice. Ongoing research at California State University, Los Angeles is exploring how faculty perspectives are affected after participating in a community of practice intended to promote asset-based thinking towards students. This research challenges the factory-based framing of engineering education and advocates for an ecosystem model, where all participants-students, faculty, and staff-recognize their interdependence and embrace authenticity. This paper is based on qualitative data from minute papers, or participant reflections. Through inductive qualitative coding of this data, the research team has developed a code book with themes around Insights into Mindsets and Critical Points regarding understanding asset-based perspectives. Our results, contribute to the conversation about changing mental models, by tracing the journey of different faculty as they learn about asset-based perspective, process their learning through discussion and application, and how introducing this different framework affects faculty perspectives on students. This conversation is particularly important as we continue to create more inclusive classrooms, especially when faculty and students have differing experiences, based on different social identities (e.g. different racial/ethnic identities, socioeconomic status, gender identity). The contributions will also include implications for practice as we understand how faculty consider asset-based perspectives. 

The research team at [anonymized for review], is implementing an ongoing NSF-funded research project aiming to change the paradigm of teaching and learning in STEM and its underlying mental models from a factory-like model to a more ecosystem-like model. One aspect of the project is developing Communities of Practice for faculty that help foster this shift in mindset. This paper specifically discusses a more workshop-like delivery of the existing [anonymized for review] Faculty Fellows’ Community of Practice, condensed into two days, as opposed to throughout a full academic year. This workshop model was developed for lecturers, or non-tenure track (NTT) faculty, who are given less resources and opportunities for professional development and have less flexibility in their schedules. Some lecturers work part-time on campus and may have full-time employment elsewhere. Lecturers responded enthusiastically and actively contributed to conversations about educational models in these sessions. They showed interest in more professional development opportunities like [anonymized for review], which they are often not afforded in their roles as lecturers. Lecturers also reiterated the lack of opportunities for community-building such as what they felt was provided by this workshop series. The research team’s Lecturers’ Community of Practice was overwhelmingly well-received by lecturers, despite its condensed nature. The focus of this paper is on the intentional decisions made by the research and facilitation team to provide professional development experience catered to non-tenure track faculty, some who are part-time instructors . In this paper, we also highlight what aspects of the workshop resonated with lecturers, particularly those designed with lecturers in mind, and those unexpectedly helpful for the participants. This paper adds to the conversation on providing more workshops on inclusive teaching for NTT Faculty, who play a critical role in making our programs successful. We include feedback from participants and implications for practice.