Scholarships, Service Learning, and Community Engagement to Improve Student Success in Engineering and Computer Science

奖学金、服务学习和社区参与可提高学生在工程和计算机科学方面的成功

• 批准号: 2030476
• 负责人: Tariq Khraishi
• 金额: $ 100万
• 依托单位: University of New Mexico
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-01-01 至 2025-12-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2030476&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Scholarships; Service; Learning; Community; Engagement

This project will contribute to the national need for well-educated scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and technicians by supporting the retention and graduation of high-achieving, low-income students with demonstrated financial need at the University of New Mexico, a Hispanic-Serving and Minority-Serving Institution. Over its five-year duration, the project will provide scholarships to 72 unique, full time students who are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in computer science or engineering (civil, chemical, nuclear, and electrical and computer). Scholars will be transfer students from two-year colleges and current upper division students in the School of Engineering. They will be admitted in three cohorts and receive annually renewable, one-year scholarships. Scholars will have access to a suite of student support, career, and workforce development activities. In addition, they will participate in a year-long faculty-mentored learning community and engage in service learning and community engagement activities. Such activities have been shown to benefit students through relationship-building with local organizations as they work on technical problems faced by communities. Given the University’s student population, this project has the potential to broaden participation in the engineering and computer science workforce. It also can directly benefit the local community through service-learning projects. This project will advance knowledge in the field of engineering education by studying how service learning and community engagement experiences influence students’ attitudes and beliefs toward public welfare, and whether learning communities and other organized academic activities help shape positive academic outcomes.The overall goal of this project is to increase STEM degree completion of low-income, high-achieving undergraduates with demonstrated financial need. The specific aims are to: 1) develop Scholar cohorts through engineering faculty-mentored learning communities, known to support persistence and academic success; 2) provide a suite of career and workforce-development activities focused on preparation for high paying jobs; 3) create an academic culture that fosters the development of societal responsibility; and 4) generate new knowledge regarding how to nurture community in educational practices and how to integrate social relevance in engineering/computer science curricula. This study will address three research questions: 1) How do paid service learning/community engagement experiences influence Scholars’ attitudes and beliefs and does Scholar interest change as they approach graduation? 2) How do these attitudes and beliefs compare to Scholars who undertake unpaid Honors Thesis service learning/community engagement experiences for academic credit? 3) To what extent and in what ways do integrated project activities affect Scholars’ communication skills? The project will be evaluated through a mixed-methods approach using data collected about Scholar performance as well as observations and feedback from Scholars and faculty mentors from surveys and interviews. Results of this project will be made available to the university community through annual campus presentations, to the public through local media outlets, and to the STEM education community through conference presentations and a project website. This project is funded by NSF’s Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics program, which seeks to increase the number of low-income academically talented students with demonstrated financial need who earn degrees in STEM fields. It also aims to improve the education of future STEM workers, and to generate knowledge about academic success, retention, transfer, graduation, and academic/career pathways of low-income students.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该项目将支持有经济需要的成绩优异、低收入的学生在新墨西哥大学（一所西班牙裔服务机构）的保留和毕业，从而满足国家对受过良好教育的科学家、数学家、工程师和技术人员的需求。在为期五年的时间内，该项目将为 72 名正在攻读计算机科学或工程（土木、化学、核、电气和计算机）学士学位的独特全日制学生提供奖学金。他们将是来自两年制大学的转学生和工程学院的当前高年级学生，他们将分三批入学，并获得每年可更新的为期一年的奖学金，获得一系列学生支持、职业、此外，他们还将参加为期一年的教师指导的学习社区，并参与服务学习和社区参与活动，这些活动已被证明可以通过在学生工作时与当地组织建立关系而受益。鉴于大学学生面临的技术问题。人口，该项目有潜力扩大工程和计算机科学劳动力的参与，它还可以通过服务学习项目直接使当地社区受益。该项目将通过研究服务学习和社区如何促进工程教育领域的知识。参与经历影响学生对公共福利的态度和信念，并了解社区和其他有组织的学术活动是否有助于塑造积极的学术成果。该项目的总体目标是提高低收入、成绩优异的本科生的 STEM 学位完成率财务需求的具体目标是： 1）培养学者。通过工程学院指导的学习社区，以支持坚持和学术成功而闻名；2）提供一系列职业和劳动力发展活动，重点为高薪工作做好准备；3）创造一种促进社会责任发展的学术文化； ; 4）产生关于如何在教育实践中培养社区以及如何将社会相关性融入工程/计算机科学课程的新知识本研究将解决三个研究问题：1）付费服务学习/社区参与体验如何影响学者的学习。态度和信念以及临近毕业时，学者的兴趣会发生变化吗？ 2) 与为获得学分而进行无偿荣誉论文服务学习/社区参与体验的学者相比，这些态度和信念如何？ 3) 综合项目活动在多大程度上以及以何种方式影响学者？该项目将通过混合方法进行评估，使用收集的有关学者表现的数据以及学者和教师导师通过调查和访谈的观察和反馈。该项目的结果将通过以下方式提供给大学社区。年度校园演讲，该项目由 NSF 科学、技术、工程和数学奖学金计划资助，旨在增加低收入学术群体的数量。它还旨在改善未来 STEM 工作者的教育，并提供有关低收入学生的学业成功、保留、转学、毕业和学术/职业道路的知识。该奖项体现了通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，NSF 的法定使命被认为值得支持。