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2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access

Improving STEM Education for Lower-division College Students at HSI by Utilizing Relevant Sociocultural and Academic Experiences: First-year Results from ASSURE-US Project

Presented at Minorities in Engineering Division Technical Session 2

Despite national efforts in increasing representation of minority students in STEM disciplines, disparities prevail. Hispanics account for 17.4% of the U.S. population, and nearly 20% of the youth population (21 years and below) in the U.S. is Hispanic, yet they account for just 7% of the STEM workforce. To tackle these challenges, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has granted a 5-year project – ASSURE-US, that seeks to improve undergraduate education in Engineering and Computer Science (ECS) at California State University, Fullerton. The project seeks to advance student success during the first two years of college for ECS students. Towards that goal, the project incorporates a very diverse set of approaches, such as socio-cultural and academic interventions. Multiple strategies including developing early intervention strategies in gateway STEM courses, creating a nurturing faculty-student interaction and collaborative learning environment, providing relevant, contextual-based learning experiences, integrating project-based learning with engineering design in lower-division courses, exposing lower-division students to research to sustain student interests, and helping students develop career-readiness skills. The project also seeks to develop an understanding of the personal, social, cognitive, and contextual factors contributing to student persistence in STEM learning that can be used by STEM faculty to improve their pedagogical and student-interaction approaches. This paper summarizes the major approaches the ASSURE-US project plans to implement to reduce the achievement gap and motivate ECS students to remain in the program. Preliminary findings from the first-year implementation of the project including pre- and post- data were collected and analyzed from about one hundred freshmen and sophomore ECS students regarding their academic experience in lower-division classes and their feedback for various social support events held by the ASSURE-US project during the academic year 2018-19. The preliminary results obtained during the first year of ASSURE-US project suggests that among the different ASSURE-US activities implemented in the first year, both the informal faculty-student interactions and summer research experiences helped students commit more to their major during their lower-division years. The pre-post surveys also show improvements in terms of awareness among ASSURE-US students for obtaining academic support services, understanding career options and pathways, and obtaining personal counseling services.

Authors
  1. Dr. Jidong Huang California State University, Fullerton [biography]

    Dr. Jidong Huang is a Professor of Electrical Engineering at California State University, Fullerton. His research had been supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and multiple industrial sponsors. Currently, his research interests are focused on innovative approaches for STEM teaching and learning; robotics; the design of high-precision, integrated navigation system with high integrity; and their indoor/outdoor applications. He is a member of the Institute of Navigation (ION); and a senior member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

  2. Dr. Sudarshan T. Kurwadkar Orcid 16x16http://orcid.org/https://0000-0003-2970-5138 California State University, Fullerton [biography]

    Dr. Sudarshan Kurwadkar is a Professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at California State University, Fullerton. He is a licensed Professional Engineer and a Board-Certified Environmental Engineer. During his academic career, he has received numerous awards, scholarships, and fellowships. He won the Teaching Excellence Award, 2018 Excellence in Scholarly and Creative Activities Award, Faculty Advisor of Distinction 2020, 2019 ASCE Outstanding Faculty Advisor in the State of California, and 2020 L. Donald Shield Award for Excellence in Scholarly and Creative Activities. He was awarded numerous summer faculty fellowships with the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and the Air Force Institute of Technology - Wright Patterson Air Force Base. He is currently on sabbatical working at the US Environmental Protection Agency. He is a Principal Investigator of the National Science Foundation-funded $1.5 Million grant to enhance freshman and sophomore engineering students' learning experiences. His research is in the areas of fate and transport of organic and inorganic pollutants in the environment.

  3. Dr. Doina Bein Orcid 16x16http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5072-1979 California State University, Fullerton [biography]

    Dr. Bein has an extensive publication record: 13 book chapters, 19 journal articles, and 69 conference papers. Four of her conference papers have received the best paper awards. She was awarded (as PI or co-PI) several research and teaching grants from AFOSR and NSF. She is the general vice-chair of an annual conference, International Conference on Information Technology: New Generations (ITNG), held in April in Las Vegas, NV. She is the faculty advisor of the ACM Women in Computing (ACM-W) local chapter, that organizes several outreach activities to inspire girl scouts in STEM education, and won several campus awards, Presidential Award from the Girl Scouts of America, and the 2018 Inspiring Programs in STEM Award from INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine.

  4. Dr. Yu Bai California State University, Fullerton [biography]

    Dr. Yu Bai is an Assistant Professor in the Computer Engineering Program in the College of Engineering and Computer Science at the California State University, Fullerton. His research has been supported by Intel and other federal agencies. His research interests include machine learning, social media analysis, neuromorphic computing, FPGA design, nano-scale computing system with novel silicon and post-silicon devices, and low power digital and mixed-signal CMOS circuit design.

  5. Dr. Salvador Mayoral California State University, Fullerton [biography]

    Dr. Salvador Mayoral received his Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the University of California, Irvine in 2013. As a graduate student, Dr. Mayoral worked on the shielding of jet noise by a hybrid wing body aircraft. In 2014, Dr. Mayoral joined the Department of Mechanical Engineering at California State University, Fullerton where he currently serves as an Assistant Professor. As the PI of the Wind Tunnel Laboratory, his research interests span the areas of aeroacoustics, ground effect aerodynamics, and has recently expanded his interests into the hydrodynamics of marine life. Moreover, Dr. Mayoral is a CoPI of the NSF funded “Advancing Student Success by Utilizing Relevant Social-cultural and Academic Experiences for Undergraduate Engineering, Computer Science Students” (ASSURE-US) Project.

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